


And You May Ask Yourself...

by RedgrenGrumboldt



Series: Weird Sisters [2]
Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Amnesia, Future Fic, Multi, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-09-12 07:09:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 41,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16868416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedgrenGrumboldt/pseuds/RedgrenGrumboldt
Summary: One minute, he was an ordinary nine-year-old football-headed kid. The next, he's in a world he never made, married to his arch-nemesis, father of two, and target of a nefarious plot. Good thing his wife's also Hillwood's most prominent superhero. Set in the future of my story "Body Issues". Update: Deleted scene added!





	1. Well, How Did I Get Here?

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published on ff dot net for Flower Princess 11's future fic challenge, It was originally supposed to be exclusive to that site, but I've decided to start posting it here too.
> 
> This story is set in a potential future of my story "Body Issues". Hopefully you don't need to read it to understand what's going on, since I plan to explain everything you should need to know, but I would of course love it if you did go check out that story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arnold has a rude awakening.

Chapter 1

Well, How Did I Get Here?

25 Years Ago

Around Mid-April

Gerald Field

-ARNOLD-

"Man, anyone catch the latest episode of the Z-Files? Boy howdy, what a cliffhanger that was!"

I, Arnold Shortman, 9 years old, patiently waited for my turn at bat, trying to tune out Sid as he rambled about the latest developments in everybody's favorite sci-fi/suspense/political conspiracy thriller.

"So, like, Wolf gets captured by the aliens, but then at the end, he wakes up in his house, and his wife and kids are back with no explanation, and I'm like 'how is that possible? We saw them taken all the way back in season four!' But then his wife cuts herself making dinner, and the blood's the wrong color! And the camera pulls back and it turns out he's in an alien simulation the whole time!"

"Yeah, we know," muttered Gerald. "We all saw it."

"I didn't," complained Iggy.

"Hey, I gave a spoiler warning," Sid answered. "Well, I meant to give one."

A bunch of catcalls from the field confirmed that Joey had just struck out.

"All right, everyone, take five!" Helga called, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. "Arnold, the human ball repellent, is up to bat! Everyone can take it easy!"

I scowled. Sure, I hadn't gotten a single hit in the last three games, but she didn't have to rub it in like that.

It was hard to believe, mere weeks ago, she'd been confessing her undying love to me atop the FTI building. In the weeks since then, it seemed like she was acting even meaner than usual, as if she was trying to compensate.

Sometimes, I wondered if giving Helga the chance to back out of her confession had really been the best idea. Maybe the two of us could have reached some sort of understanding. Tried to figure out exactly how we felt each other. But I'd taken the coward's way out.

Of course, Helga hadn't had to react the way she did, either. But she'd chosen to escalate. And if this was her reaction… well, maybe the two of us really were better off as enemies.

I took my stance at the plate. "Easy out! Easy out! No way Footbal-Head's gettin' a piece of the ball!" Helga continued to jeer as I whiffed the first pitch.

"Could you just shut up and let me bat?" I irritatedly hissed.

"Awww, what'samatter, paste-for-brains? Did I hurt your wittle fee-fees or something? Here, let me play you a sad song on my tiny violin!"

Once again, Harold pitched, and once again, I missed spectacularly, swinging with such force I spun a full 360 degrees before almost falling down.

"Ha! Check it out! Arnold, the human tornado! C'mon, swing again, it's a hot day and we could all use a breeze!"

"Why are you like this?" I inquired, almost at the point of exasperation. "Why can't you just stop being a jerk for one second? I know you're not this way all the time. I know you have the capacity for kindness. Why can't you just let yourself use it?"

Helga lifted her catcher's mask to look me right in the eye. "You wanna know why? 'Cause you piss me off, Football-Head. You and your sanctimonious do-gooder attitude make me sick. You're always so nice and so perfect, it just makes me wanna throw up. That's why I'm so mean, Arnold. It's because of you."

"Well. Good of you to clear that up."

"Yeah, yeah, now hurry up and lose the game so we can all go home and I don't have to look at your ugly football face anymore."

My irritation began to blossom into full-blown anger. I wondered why I'd even bothered to talk to the pigtailed bundle of rage and scorn. Clearly, dealing with Helga was a waste of time. That whole "love confession" had probably just been another in a long series of cruel jokes.

Well, now I was going to show her. I was knocking this next one out of the park.

Harold wound up.

I choked up on the bat.

Harold let go of the pitch. It was a slider.

I prepared to swi-

"MISS!" Helga shouted in my ear.

"Helga!" Reflexively, I turned toward her in frustration. "Would you just-"

*POW*

And everything suddenly went black. I thought I heard a horrified voice shout "NO!" as I felt my consciousness fade out. The last thing I heard, as I faded out for the final time, was a whispered "I'm sorry."  
\--  
"Good… it looks like he's regaining consciousness…"

I fought his way back to consciousness, toward the voice. My eyes snapped open, then quickly closed again at the harshness of the light.

"You're going to be a bit sensitive to bright light for a while. That's perfectly normal in these cases."

I opened his eyes again. The speaker was a young Asian woman, dressed in hospital scrubs and a lab coat. There was something oddly familiar about her and her voice...

"Wh-where am I…" Why did my voice sound so deep?

"You're at Hillwood General," the woman replied. "Tell me… what was the last thing you remember?"

"We were playing baseball… I got distracted, and a pitch hit me… I guess it was pretty bad if they brought me all the way here."

The woman looked concerned. "Oh dear. It looks like a pretty serious case." She tapped something on her wrist. A holographic screen expanded out of seemingly nothing. She began tapping at it.

"Tell me, Arnold… do you recognize me?" she said.

"I don't think so," I replied. "I mean, you kind of look like my friend Phoebe, but that's impossible. She's my age, and you're… y'know… old."

The woman chuckled a bit. "Actually… I am your friend Phoebe. And people tell me I look rather young for a 34-year-old."

"34? H-how is that possible?"

And then I looked down at his own body. My adult body.

"Arnold," she asked. "What is today's date?"

"April 13, 2015. Isn't it?"

She shook her head. "It's April 13… 2040. I don't know exactly how to tell you this…"

I felt dizzy.

"There was an attack at the museum where you work. You were struck by a memory-erasing device. Physically, you're in perfect shape. But, Arnold… you've had the last 25 years of your life wiped out."

I shook my head. This couldn't be happening. This had to be a dream. Any moment now, I'd wake up in Gerald Field with all my friends around me and all of this would be over.

"Dr. Heyerdahl," a nurse interrupted. "You told us to contact the patient's wife? Well, she's in the building. And she's not happy."

I was married? Not only was I now an adult with a quarter century of memories lost, I had a wife that I didn't even know? Who could it possibly be?

A loud voice could be heard booming down the hallway outside. "ALL RIGHT, ONE SIDE! MOVE IT OR LOSE IT! DOTING WIFE COMING THROUGH! OUTTA MY WAY, GEEKBAIT! TRUST ME, YOU DO NOT WANNA SLOW ME DOWN, BUCKO!"

Oh no. Oh, no, no no no no.

This… this wasn't possible.

A tall, blonde woman forced her way past the nurse. "Arnold! I got here as fast as I could! Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

She was older. The features were a bit softer. The trademark unibrow and pigtails were gone, and the pink bow now held a ponytail in place. But the woman's identity was unmistakable. I'd only heard one person ever utter the phrase "Outta my way, Geekbait!"

This woman, unmistakably, was my bane, my nemesis, the blight of my existence. This woman was Helga G. Pataki.

And this woman was, apparently, my wife.

That was all I could take. My brain had reached its limit. I could no longer deal with this. As she reached for me, I simply gave up trying to process any of it and keeled over, hoping the next world I woke up in would make some sense.


	2. Menace of the Maniacal Memory Master!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Helga tries to break it to Arnold gently.

Chapter 2

Menace of the Maniacal Memory Master!

April 13,2040

Hillwood General

-HELGA-

"ALL RIGHT, ONE SIDE!"

My name is Helga G. Pataki. I'm 35 years old. By day, I'm an award-winning novelist, devoted wife, and loving mother of two.

"MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!"

By night… well, I'm still all of that, but I'm something else, too. Something stronger, something stranger.

"DOTING WIFE COMING THROUGH!"

But right now, I'm Day Helga. Shoving my way through a hospital corridor like I'm nine again and bullying my way through a PS118 hallway. I'd like to think I'm much, much nicer these days… but I guess some rough edges can never fully be sanded off.

"OUTTA MY WAY, GEEKBAIT!"

"Outta my way, geekbait"? Criminy, when was the last time I let that bon mot slip out? I really am having an off day.

"TRUST ME, YOU DO NOT WANNA GET IN MY WAY!"

Threatening the people I love really does bring out the worst in me.

I pushed my way past the nurse in the doorway. Mental note: apologize later, assure him I'm not really like this.

He was sitting there, looking really out of it but otherwise not particularly hurt. Dr. Phoebe Sakura Johanssen-Heyerdahl, best damn neurologist in the country and my best friend since before I could even string together a coherent sentence, was attending, so he had definitely been in the best hands.

"Arnold! I got here as fast as I could! Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

He responded by way of letting his eyes roll back into his head and passing out. Funny, I don't usually have that effect on him unless I'm wearing that one little number with the black lace and the see-through- but that's for special occasions.

"Pheebs? What happened to him? All I heard when they called me was that he'd been attacked by some mystery assailant. But he doesn't look like he's been hurt."

"He hasn't been… I'm afraid the attack was more… mental."

"Mental?"

"Yes. While Arnold is physically unharmed, it appears the assailant stole the last twenty-five years of his memory."

I felt my fists clench. "It was him, wasn't it."

Phoebe nodded. "Arnold's condition is consistent with his other victims. All evidence points to this being the work of the Memory Master."

The Memory Master. Nobody knew who he'd originally been, but somehow he'd gotten his hands on the plans for a memory-erasing device invented by Fiddleford H. McGuckett, an eccentric scientist from Gravity Falls, Oregon. The device had once been used by a weird cult called the Society of the Blind Eye. It'd been destroyed a long time ago, but apparently someone had managed to reconstruct it and was now using it for a crime spree.

"I take it your worse half is working the case, then?"

"Helga! You know I don't like when you call him that!"

"Pheebs, babe, you know I love Geraldo but you are way too good for him and I'm never gonna stop believing that,"

"You'd say that about anyone I married."

"Because it's true. You're amazing. You're a brilliant doctor, an amazing mom, and you made for a spectacular partner back when we used to work the, ah, night shift together."

She blushed. "Stop."

"Ever think about getting the ol' tights out of mothballs?"

"It was fun, but I'm afraid those days are behind me. I have far too much on my plate."

"Pity. It gets a little lonely on patrol these days. So, uh… in the meantime, how do I handle this? I mean… twenty-five years. That's most of his life. That's before San Lorenzo, even. Until I catch the Memory Master, it'll be like our entire lives together never happened. Oh god… we have kids, Phoebe. He won't remember his own kids. Robbie's only three, Phoebe! How do I tell him daddy doesn't even know him?"

"I know this will be difficult, but you'll have to be patient with him. From his point of view, it's as though he's still nine and he's in a strange world he never made. You'll have to go easy on him. Although… there are cases of victims of this technology getting their memories back on their own."

"What do I have to do?"

"I would suggest slowly introducing him to the details of his current life. The basics first. We can introduce some of the more… complicated aspects later."

"So… keep my 'other half' under wraps, in other words."

"For the time being, yes, The revelation that he's a husband and father is quite a bit to swallow on its own. Adding in the fact that said wife and children aren't strictly…"

"…human?" I added, finally addressing the elephant in the room.

"Exactly. It's too much all at once. It could cause him to break with reality. So… go easy."

"Gotcha. Keep it simple."

Arnold was starting to stir again. "Uhhh… Grandpa, I just had a crazy dream…" he mumbled.

I held my breath as those perfect green eyes fluttered open, wondering how he'd react."

He took in his surroundings again, eyes darting from Phoebe, to the medical equipment, and finally back to me. "N-no… " he stammered. "It was a dream. It had to be. I can't still be here. YOU can't still be here."

"Arnold…" I reached for him. He flinched. "It's okay, Arnold. No one's going to hurt you. I would never hurt you."

"Of course you would! You hurt me all the time! You just got me hit in the head by a baseball!" His hand instinctively went to the lump that, from his perspective, should have been there, but in actuality had healed long ago.

"Arnold, that was twenty-five years ago. Things have changed. I've changed." Oh, brother, how I've changed. You can't even begin to know.

Arnold shook his head "N-no… this is all crazy…"

"Arnold, I want to show you something… just… just calm down and let me show you.

I tapped a control on my B-Watch to bring up a holoscreen. I tapped the photo album icon and scrolled to the folder I figured would be the best to show him.

The location: Tina Park. The date: July 4, 2039. Our annual picnic, one of the few times a year when those of us in the gang who still lived in Hillwood all got together to hang out.

None of them were in this particular shot. It was just the four of us. Arnold to the right, arm around Trudy, who was making a silly face. Me on the left, Robbie, then only 2, on my lap.

"This is us, This is your family. The girl is Trudy. She's nine, and your little identical clone there is Robbie. He's three. No mistaking who his daddy is, am I rght?"

He stared at the picture. "I… have kids?"

"We have kids, Arnold." I corrected.

"We have kids," he repeated, disbelieving.

"Would you like to meet them?"


	3. This is Not My Beautiful House, This is Not My Beautiful Wife!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arnold gets a pleasant surprise.

Chapter 3

This is Not my Beautiful House, this is Not my Beautiful Wife!

Sunset Arms

-ARNOLD-

I'd been lost in thought the whole drive here. The neighborhood had changed so much. Everywhere, there were reminders that time had moved on. New, modern buildings stood everywhere, all the vehicles were the new clean variety, billboards had been replaced by massive holographic screens… even the things that had stayed the same had changed. Green Meats still stood but had expanded to include a sit-down deli restaurant. PS118 was twice as large as it had been, with a new, modern playground. The Circle Theater had been restored and was actually in use as a classic film revival house (of course, in 2040, the definition of what counted as "classic" had expanded; the current offering was a Nolan retrospective).

Of course, that was all just background to the huge changes that had been thrust upon me in my own life. Less than an hour ago, from my perspective, I had I'd been a nine-year-old kid playing baseball with my friends, as a nine-year-old kid is supposed to do. Now, here I was. I was thirty-four. I had a job. I was married. To Helga. I had two kids. With Helga. I had a life. With Helga.

Of course, there was still the possibility that all this was some bizarre concussion-induced nightmare brought on by that baseball-to-the-head. That any minute now, I would wake up in Gerald Field and all this would be over.

"We're here. You ready?"

It was strange, though… a few weeks ago, when Rhonda's origami marriage predictor had set me up with Helga, I'd dreamed exactly this situation. And in the dream, it went exactly like I expected… Helga was mean, lazy, and cruel, my life was miserable, and everything was awful until I forced myself to confront Helga and demand to know why she was so terrible to me. And…

Well, the part at the end was so hazy, almost like my subconscious was trying to tell me something that I already knew but was unready to accept as the truth. In the end, I woke up feeling oddly relaxed about the possibility of marrying Helga, but unsure exactly why.

But this Helga… this Helga was nothing like the Helga in my dream. Aside from that one moment when she'd first burst into the hospital room, this Helga had been unfailingly kind, understanding and thoughtful to me. Another reason why this couldn't be real.

*snap* "Arnold? Are you with me, Arnold? We're here."

"Huh?" I shook my head, pulling myself from my reverie. "Sorry."

"It's all right, I've gotten used to it. You're always disappearing into that beautiful football head of yours. It's charming most of the time. Not so much when I'm actually trying to get your attention…"

"I'm just… I have a lot to think about."

"Look, I get it," she said "Suddenly adrift in a world you never made, some crazy blonde lady telling you she's your wife and telling you all about this life you've made together. Heck, if I was in your shoes, I probably wouldn't buy it either. In fact… sometimes I wonder if I'm the one who's dreaming and I'm going to wake up that ugly little girl in the pink bow with the miserable life. Because, truth told… part of me still thinks I don't deserve this."

"It's just really hard to accept. You kind of look like the Helga I know… you sound like her, a little…but she was just so… so…"

"Mean? Insensitive? Crude? Selfish? Pushy? Yeah, that sounds like me, all right. Some people would say it's still me. Like my editor. Trust me, there is no love lost there."

I looked outside. The Sunset Arms, in contrast to the city around us, looked completely unchanged. "We still live here?" I asked.

"No, we have a place uptown. We're here to pick up Robbie. He's been with his grandma and grandpa all day."

I was confused. "Why are your parents living here?"

"Not mine. Yours. Criminy, you really are out of it."

My parents? My parents are HERE?

I practically hurled myself from the car, bounding up the steps two at a time. I hurled the door open, bracing for a swarm of assorted animals that never came.

I entered, and found that, while the exterior of the house hadn't changed, the interior had been entirely renovated. New furniture, new wallpaper, new everything. Once again, I had been blindsided by the curse of time.

"Arnold? You're early."

I whirled. There, in the door. Two faces I barely knew outside of photographs. There were some wrinkles on those faces, and their hair was streaked with grey, but they were unmistakable.

"Mom? Dad? You're back!"

"Uh… we never left. You're the one who's back." my dad said, grinning.

I ran up and hugged them, fearing that at any second, this would all fade and I'd wake up again. Thankfully, reality held and I felt my arms wrap around them firmly. "It's so good to see you."

"Well, it's good to see you too, dear. You're unusually affectionate today. It hasn't exactly been forever since the last time you saw us," Mom said.

Yes. Yes it has, I thought, and now you're here and I'm scared it's all gonna fade away.

"Are you okay, son? You seem a bit out of it," my dad questioned.

"It's okay, he, ah, bumped his head and he's in a bit of a haze," Helga, who had just caught up with me, explained hastily.

"Really," Mom responded skeptically.

"Look," Helga whispered, "I'll explain all this later, but right now let's keep this quiet. I don't want Robbie to-"

"Mommy! Daddy!"

Once again, I flashed back to my nightmare of ugly, ugly babies chanting "Football head! Football head!" and crawling all over me.

And then a tiny version of me came running up to me, grabbing hold of my leg. I'm not sure if it was fragments of my lost memory or simply biological instinct that made me hoist the child into my arms, but nevertheless, that was what I did. Up close, I could see that his hair color was actually closer to Helga's than mine, and that he had a monobrow just like she used to, but it was still unmistakable just whose child this was.

He was even wearing my old blue hat.

"Daddy, it was gweat! Gwanma and Gwandpa pwayed catch with me in the pawk, and then we had ice cweam, and then we came home and they told me stowies about the Gween Eyes and about the time Mommy fought the Giant Wobot King fwom space…

"Heh heh, kids and their crazy imaginations. Space robots, what'll they think of next."

"Yeah, grandparents make up some crazy stuff. My own grandpa used to tell me that your grandma and grandpa were the stars of a Chinese midget circus."

"Wow, that is ridiculous," mom said. "Your father's a disaster area just on his feet, can you imagine him on a trapeze?"

"I'm not THAT bad, am I?"

"Robbie, how many times did Grandpa fall while we played catch?"

Robbie counted on his fingers. "Thwee times."

"The ground there is very uneven." Dad protested.

I couldn't believe it. I hadn't seen my parents in years, and yet, here we were, just casually having a conversation. With my son. And my wife. Helga.

"I, uh… I'm still a little dizzy… from hitting my head. I, I have to go get some air…"

"Good idea, honey," Helga assured. "Why don't you take Robbie outside to the car while I talk to your folks for a few more minutes?"

She was probably going to clear things up about my memory loss. Once again, I tried to reconcile this Helga with the one I knew and utterly failed.

I carried Robbie to the car and started strapping him into his car seat. "So, do you, uh…" How do you talk to a son you don't even remember? "Do you like playing with Grandma and Grandpa?"

"Uh huh," he said. "They're nice and they tell gweat stowies."

"Yeah… they've been on some amazing adventures."

"Last week, they told me about when you and Mommy fought the Son of La Sombwa and saved the Gween Eyes again."

Apparently Helga and I have had some amazing adventures too. At least the way Mom and Dad tell it. "And how is Mommy?"

"Mommy's weally nice and weally pwetty and weally stwong and sometimes she takes me fwying."

"Flying, huh?" The imagination on this kid. "So, she picks you up and spins you around?"

"No, daddy! In the sky!"

"Hey there," Helga said, hugging me from behind suddenly. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

Hugging me. Helga. Helga G. Pataki. Hugging me. My brain kept trying to process it, it, and kept failing. That this charming, beautiful (wait, beautiful? Did I think she was beautiful?) woman was the same girl who had tormented me for most of my life was simply impossible to fathom…

…and yet…

…it wasn't most of my life. If this Helga was telling the truth, most of my life had been taken from me.

After I got Robbie set and closed the door, I turned to face Helga. "So, I guess you cleared up everything with Mom and Dad, huh."

"Yeah, I filled them in. They're very familiar with unusual medical cases, so it wasn't too much trouble."

We took our seats. "Aw, he's all tuckered out," Helga gushed. "As usual. Put him in the car seat and he's out like a light."

"He's kinda cute," I admitted.

"Well, of course he is, he takes after you."

"I assume he's named after your Dad." I surmised.

"Mmmm… not exactly. But it's really convenient 'cause Bob thinks he is, and if that means he does right by his grandson, I'm not gonna correct him. The truth is, Robbie's named after someone we both respected and admired. Best teacher we ever had."

"Mr. Simmons?"

"Got it in one, Bucko. Anyway, that's one down… ready to meet your daughter?"


	4. What we Keep Hidden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arnold learns what's become of everyone and we meet the net generation.

Chapter 4

What We Keep Hidden

PS118 Schoolyard

Some things are eternal. Like the relationship between predator and prey.

One may think that this was unique to the animal kingdom, but what was man but an animal that had acquired the pretense of civilization?

Here on the playground, the role of predator was taken by the ever-resent school bully and his cronies. No matter the generation, there was always someone who got their jollies harassing those who were different and, in their eyes, deserving of scorn, and in this schoolyard, that role was filled by Sebastian and his two sidekicks, Edvard and Pyotr.

The trio was, at this moment, approaching a prospective victim. Today, the role of prey would be played by Riva Berman, who, though a pleasant, outgoing, intelligent, well-liked girl, had inherited both parents' tendency towards extra poundage and was thus a prime target.

"Check it out." Sebastian remarked with a sneer, giving Edvard a poke in the ribs. "I didn't know there was such a thing as kosher pork."

Riva looked up from the manga volume she'd been reading, scowling. "Clever. You insulted my weight and my religion. Good job. Maybe you could work in something about my gender, hit the ol' douchebag trifecta?"

"You tryin' to get smart with me, piggy?" He snorted, and his two dimwitted companions joined in.

"I don't need this," the fourth-grader grumbled, starting to get up.

"Hold on, piggy. Where do you think you're going? We're not done with you yet." The overgrown sixth-grader shoved the chubby girl, causing her to fall over the bench and land hard on her rear.

"Check it out," jeered Pyotr." She fell on her pork butt!" Riva struggled to get up, but the bullies simply pushed her back down again, laughing at her for the clumsiness they themselves had induced on her, as all bullies have done since the dawn of bullydom.

"Hey!"

The three turned to face the newcomer. She was a girl, nine years old, taller than average, clad in jeans and a red plaid sweatshirt, with a mass of wild cornflower-hued hair under a blue toque cap and piercing green eyes crested with thick eyebrows.

-TRUDY-

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Officer Trudy Shortman, self-proclaimed Bully Police," sneered Sebastian. "I guess with a nose that big, you can't help but stick it in everyone's business, can you."

My hand unconsciously went to my nose. Was it big? Mom always said I had grandma's nose, and it looked fine on her…

Gaahhh. This is how they get to you. Make you question your own self-worth. Take the fight out of yourself so they don't have to deal with you fighting them back. I'd seen it with Riva. She came off as if she didn't care, but the constant cracks about her weight did wear on her. They go after the thing that you're most self-conscious about. In my case, it was my looks. Big nose, big eyebrows, hair I can't do anything with, weird little "billy-goat" ears. I wasn't winning "Prettiest in the fourth grade" anytime soon. Akiko Johanssen pretty much had a lock on that one anyway.

I steeled myself. There was no way I was letting this slab of meat with pretentions of sentience get in my head. "I think you should walk away right now, Sebacious Cyst."

"Dude, she just called you a… I don't know what she called you, but it sounded bad," Edvard advised.

"She ain't doin' it again," Sebastian snarled, cracking his knuckles. "Not after I rearrange her face. Heh, she should probably thank me for making her look better." The idiot advanced.

"Uh, I dunno… I've kinda heard that she's a lot stronger than she looks," warned Pyotr.

Oh, they had no idea.

The brute swung a fist at my face. I dodged, grabbed his arm as it went past me, just as my mom had taught, and twisted it behind his back, grabbing his head in a full nelson. "Not so easy, is it," I whispered in his ear.

There's a reason I tend to wear loose, body-concealing clothing. It's because I've got muscles unlike any nine-year-old girl out there. I was strong enough to wrestle anyone in school, boy or girl, under the table.

And that wasn't even the start of what I was really capable of.

"Leggo of me, ya ugly freak!" Sebastian demanded, squirming.

"Call off your goons and I'll think about it," I answered. "Don't, and more of this happens." I twisted his arm for emphasis.

"Fine! Ed, Pete, leave Peppa alone and go start walking. I'll join you in a minute.

I waited until his two weasels departed, then released him. "So… what'd we learn?" I asked.

He responded by sucker-punching me in the face and running off. "Always get the last punch in!" he shouted, laughter braying in the distance.

"Asshole," I muttered, rubbing my nose. "Is it bleeding? Can you see if it'd bleeding?"

"A little," Riva confirmed. "Hold on, I've got some tissues in here." She rummaged in her purse and came up with one. I grabbed it quickly, hoping no one else had seen.

"It's okay," Riva said. "I don't think anyone noticed."

"Good… I'm considered enough of a weirdo." The blood, only a trickle, was already coming to a stop. I eyed the blue-green stain on the tissue. "I don't need this getting out."

"I dunno… I think it's kinda cool. My best friend's an alien."

Okay, so… my mom? She's kind of a big deal around Hillwood. She's written a bunch of best-sellers, she has a seat on the city council, and she's also literally a superhero. Tights and everything. The latter thanks to an alien blood infection that she picked up at the tender age of eleven that changed her into a new super-powered life-form. Which she passed on to me.

I first changed at the even tenderer age of seven. Until then, the virus had been in my bloodstream, in a dormant state, but it suddenly kicked in and I had to spend the rest of summer vacation learning how to control my new body and powers and, eventually, how to change back to my old form.

It wasn't perfect… I couldn't change the color of my blood, for one thing… but it let me blend in and I was thankful for that. I kept a tiny fraction of my power in this form, but it was still enough to make any bully think twice about targeting my friends.

"…I guess it is a little badass, but… keep it on the downlow. The world isn't quite ready for me yet."

"Girl, you are quite possible the coolest thing to grace this school since the original Weird Sisters. Why hide it?"

"Because I already stand out enough without three eyes and a tail. I am quite enough of a weirdo at the moment, thank you. Anyway, I think the bleeding's done."

"Yeah, I'd be more worried about the black eye, Tru."

"What?" I felt my face and sure enough, there was a tender, swollen area around my eye. Like the rest of me, it'd heal quickly… but not before my folks showed up to pick me up. "You don't have anything to cover this up, do you?"

"You know mom won't let me wear makeup yet."

"Agggh, they'll figure out I was in a fight! Mom hates when I get into fights! She's always telling me that I could seriously hurt someone 'cuz I don't know my own strength, but those jackholes could've seriously hurt you, and I- gaaaah, I guess I can forget about Woodstick this summer…"

"Hey, if you need me to testify on your behalf, I'll take the fall."

"No, no… this shouldn't be your problem. I have to face the music."

I could already feel the telltale mental buzz that told me mom was within 500 feet of me. It was time to think of what exactly I was going to tell her.  
\--  
Sometime earlier, in the car

-HELGA-

"So, uh…" Arnold eyed me nervously.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"I, uh… I kind of know absolutely nothing about my life."

"Yeah, I think that's been established."

"Well, uh… just what is it I do, exactly?"

"Besically? You're Indiana Jones. You work at the Hillwood Museum in the Ancient History department, you teach a class once a week at the University, and you go on awesome trips to exotic locales every once in a while. You're living the dream, basically."

"And you?"

"I'm a novelist. Mostly mysteries, but I've written a couple of childrens' books. I also hold a seat on the city council, which actually takes up less time than you'd expect."

Oh, and also I'm a half-alien superhero named Temper, yeah we'll be holding off on that for a while. One shock at a time.

"And… what's everyone else been up to?"

"Well, you've met Phoebe, she's a literal brain surgeon… she's married to Geraldo, who's a police detective, and they have one daughter, Akiko. Harold took over the butcher shop when Marty Green was elected mayor, and married Patty. Two kids, Riva and Michael. Riva and Trudy are pretty uch inseparable. Stinky is a lawyer, if you can believe it. He's married to Rani, who you probably don't remember since she moved here in sixth grade. I think that's pretty much everyone who still lives here. Curly and Sheena moved down to Portland after they got married. She's some kind of holistic healer and he's, ironically, a zookeeper. Rhonda and Nadine live in New York where Rhonda's running a media empire and Nadine's the top dog at the Natural History museum. They have a daughter named Courtney."

"…wait, Rhonda married… Nadine?"

"Well, yeah. You were Male of Honor. I must say, you really pulled off the dress."

"I wha-"

"Kidding! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I just couldn't resist having a little fun with you. Anyway, who am I forgetting… Eugene's also in New York, he's some bigshot Broadway producer. Sid's managing Lila's singing career, and between you and me, I think they might be an item. And Brainy… well, you know those holographic screens you've been seeing everywhere? He… kinda invented those. So he's pretty much got all the money."

"It's just… it's all so hard to believe…"

"What's hard to believe? That a ton can change in 25 years?"

"It just all feels like some kind of weird dream, one I can't wake up from… that's it, isn't it? The baseball hit me so hard that it knocked me into a coma. So I guess all I have to do is ride this dream out until I wake up."

I shook my head. It felt like whatever progress I had made in convincing him this was reality had evaporated and he'd just dug himself further into denial. "Honey… I don't know how I can convince you that this is reality, but for now, at least try to keep up appearances, okay? We're about to pick Trudy up, and I don't want her worrying. None of this should be her problem."

I pulled the car up alongside the schoolyard. "Trudy!" I shouted. "Hurry up, you're wasting precious freedom!"

The girl ran for the backseat as if a pack of ravenous wolves was chasing her… or as if she didn't want me to get a good look at her. Hmmm…

"Whoa. Slow your roll, kiddo… I can sense when you're trying to hide something from me. Lord knows I've done it with my parents enough times…"

"Uggh, fine…" my daughter… our daughter, of course, but there was a lot of me in her, and I don't just mean the alien DNA. "I kinda… sorta… got in a teensy bit of a fight…" She looked up, revealing a nasty shiner.

"You did what?" Arnold looked appalled.

"It was nothing, really. Some bullies were picking on my friend, I put one of them in a full nelson, and when I let go he punched me in the face and ran off like the coward he is!"

"Sebastian?" I asked. Figures. His dad had tormented us enough in gradeschool, figured his son had taken up the tradition

"I really did hold back, mom. I could've broken his arm, but I went as gentle as I could. I know I need to be careful."

"Well… I'm definitely going to have a talk with his father at the next PTA meeting. I'm sure he'd love to know what his son's been up to. "

"Great! So everything's fine and no one has to be grounded from any huge summer events or anything!"

"Well, you were fighting, which is a definite no-no, but you were defending a friend, so… Woodstick is still on. I don't think your Aunt Lila would forgive me we skipped her set, anyway."

"Thanks, mom, you're the best!" –So, what's with dad?-

-Huh?- I hadn't expected the mental communication, so it was hard to hide my surprise. I hope Arnold didn't pick up on it, especially as we were talking about him.

-He's been really quiet. Usually he greets me with a "Hey there, Starglow", but today, nothing. It feels like he doesn't know what to say to me. Like… he isn't himself.-

Should've known better than to try hiding anything from Trudy. I keep forgetting just how mature she is for her age. Like I said, there's a lot of me in her. –Well, I suppose you're old enough to understand what's happened. Your father was attacked by the Memory Master. He's okay physically, but he doesn't remember anything past the age of nine, and that includes you and Robbie.-

-So… we're gonna do something about that, right? We're gonna find him and kick his butt and get dad's memories back and everything'll be fine!-

-WE will not be doing anything, dear. *I* will be going after the Memory Master. YOU are nine years old and nowhere near ready to join me.-

-But mooooooooom…-

-Your job is to be gentle and understanding with your father. This is all very new and confusing to him and we need to be very careful what we reveal or it could be very traumatic. So, if you could try not to use your alien form around him, that'd be appreciated.-

-Okay mom. I guess that's reasonable.-

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. That was one less family member I had to hide the truth from.

There had to be some way to break it to Arnold without freaking him out. The last thing I wanted to do was keep him in the dark. But as it was, he couldn't even accept that he was married to me without convincing himself it was a coma dream. How could I spring an alien wife and daughter on him?


	5. Getting to Know Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arnold comes home and finds it's nowhere near what he expected.

Chapter 5

Getting to Know Me

Upper West Hillwood

-ARNOLD-

So this was where I lived.

It was a "modest" three-story townhouse in a well-off section of town, a far cry from the ramshackle old boarding house where I'd grown up.

I cautiously followed Helga as she opened the door, dodging to the side as the kids ran past me, Trudy mentioning she had to feed "Kaiju" (I assumed this was our dog or cat or pig or something) to what I'd been told was our home. I'm not sure what I expected… space-age décor? Avant garde? What I got was tasteful but homey, comfortable yet eclectic. There were all sorts of trinkets from what I assumed were my travels… African masks, South American figurines, Asian tapestries.

That was not what my eyes were drawn to, though. Instead, I scanned the many photos that decorated the room, hoping they would either spark the memories that had been taken from me or… if, as I suspected, this was merely a coma dream… would provide the shock that would catapult me out of it.

There were photos of me, of her, of the kids, of us, with and without the kids, photos I recognized as older versions of our friends, photos of mom and dad, a photo of Grandpa holding what looked like Trudy as a baby… I hadn't seen either Grandpa or Grandma at the boarding house, I realized. Had they…?

Helga immediately picked up on what I was looking at. "Gertie went on her 95th birthday. You know how she always liked to celebrate by trying something that she had never done before? Well, for that birthday, she decided to pick BASE jumping. Unfortunately, her parachute didn't open."

"That… kinda sounds like how she would've gone out, actually," I said.

"That's what Grandpa said. 'She went out on her own terms, having one last adventure, not wasting away in a bed somewhere.'" She smiled wistfully.

"And Grandpa?"

"He hung on for a few more years. He got to see his first great-grandchild. Went quietly in his sleep a little while after that."

I felt myself starting to tear up. "It always felt like they were gonna be around forever…"

"I know… I miss them every day." She gave me a hug. "I'm really sorry, it must feel like you just saw them…"

"I… guess I should've known, right? It's been 25 years… if this is real, anyway…"

"Oh, c'mon, are you still on that?"

"Well, yeah. I just keep getting crazy new information thrown at me. Do you blame me for not buying it? I mean… you keep expecting me to believe that I married you, of all people! That we have some kind of amazing life together!"

"Is that really so hard to believe?" She asked, irritation creeping into her voice. "That you could possibly be happy with the likes of me? Was I really so terrible?"

"You never let me have a moment's peace! You were always picking on me, calling 'Football head', playing pranks on me, humiliating me at every possible opportunity. So yeah. The fact that you turn out this nice, this beautiful, this empathetic… that I could possibly be happy with you… it's blowing my mind right now."

"You ever think maybe I acted that way for a reason?"

"What reason could you have possibly had?"

"I practically spelled out the whole thing for you on the FTI roof, Arnold! I was madly in love with you, but I didn't have the emotional maturity to handle it! I thought I was pretty clear about it, and I'm sure you remember it, since it wasn't too long before that baseball game!"

"I… well, when you went back to acting the way you used to, I just assumed it was you messing with me again."

"Once again, Arnoldo… young girl. Overdeveloped feelings. Underdeveloped emotional maturity. Backsliding was a given. You didn't have to let me, you know. You could've tried a little harder." She sighed. "It doesn't matter. It's twenty-five years in the past. There's no point in fighting it out all oer again."

"I guess," I said. Seeing the opportunity to move on from this uncomfortable subject, I continued looking over the assorted mementoes of my past. My eye fell on one particular photo… the whole gang, together, grown up.

"That one was taken a few years ago. It was the last time we were actually able to get everyone together for the 4th of July barbecue. It was the year after Mr. Simmons passed, and we all got together that year to pay tribute. A bunch of the richer folks in the class started a scholarship fund in his name. That old guy with the mustache there, that was his husband Peter."

I did recognize that guy, he'd been at Thanksgiving dinner at Mr. Simmons' house that time. Actually… that evening was notable for another reason… it was the first time I'd actually started to think that maybe there was more to Helga than appeared.

I looked over my changed friends. Gerald had short hair and a goatee now. Stinky had a mustache, Harold a bushy beard. Rhonda had let her hair grow out, while Nadine had exchanged her trademark spider braids for a loose afro. Curly, though still short especially next to the statuesque Sheena, had exchanged his coke bottle glasses and bowl cut for a far more flattering look. Eugene had actually grown quite a bit taller and sported a buzz cut, horn-rimmed glasses and a single earring, and had his arm around an unfamiliar man. Most changed of all was Lila, whose wholesome farmgirl motif had been exchanged for a decidedly more punk-rock look. I wondered what the story had been there.

And then there were the kids. I recognized a younger Trudy in the front (Helga's swollen belly, an arm draped protectively over it, spoke of the fact that Robbie would be arriving soon after), A boy and girl that I guessed were Harold and Patty's, another girl that resembled a young Rhonda (I assumed she and Nadine had adopted, but that appeared to not be the case). One that looked like a cross between Phoebe and Gerald. Another that was probably Sheena and Curly's.

Everybody had changed, almost everyone had kids. Grandpa and Grandma were gone. Mr. Simmons was gone. Who knew who else was gone? Once again, I was reeling.

"I've missed everything," I said.

"No. You were there for everything. It was taken from you. And I promise I'll do everything I can to make sure we get our life back."

She moved to hug me again, but I found myself recoiling. It was just so hard to accept this reality as the one I lived in. She looked disappointed, hurt deeply. I cursed myself for these feelings of doubt. Was it truly fair to hold this Helga, imaginary though she might be, continually responsible for the crimes of her past self?

"Sorry," I began. "I know you…"

"No you don't," she said. "I'm… realizing that more and more, and it's wrong that I keep expecting you to. I guess I can hold off on the PDAs until you remember me."

"You're right," I said. "I don't know you. But I want to. I want to get to know this Helga." My eyes continued to travel across the room, settling on a line of books prominently displayed on the mantle. I scanned the titles… Cold Hart, Losing Hart, Hart of Stone, Hart of the City, Hart Target, Die Hart… the list went on.

"Did you write all of these?" I asked, deeply impressed at her prolificness.

"Yep. The Cecile Hart mysteries are mama's meal ticket. The Hart part… sorry, the hard part is coming up with new puns for the titles." She pulled another book from the shelf. "But this is the one I'm proudest of."

I examined the cover. The book was titled The Monster Princess and the Egghead Knight. The cover illustration showed a knight, whose head was indeed shaped like an egg, gazing lovingly at dragonlike girl in a tattered princess dress.

"It's about this king who offends a witch, so she curses his unborn daughter to be a monster. The princess is cast out and forced to make her own way. One day, she saves a knight from a troll, and the knight falls in love with her, seeing the true beauty within her."

"And when the knight kisses her, the curse is broken?"

"Not exactly. She's given the choice, but the knight tells her she's perfect the way she is, and she shouldn't have to give that up to fit in. I figured that was a moral that needed to be shared with the world."

"It kinda reminds me of Agatha Caiulfield's books," I commented.

"That's what I was going for, yeah."

I thumbed through it. "Did you do the illustrations too?"

"I wish I could take the credit for that, but no. Rhonda's kid sister Rhia took care of that. I'm just responsible for the words."

"Oh. It's still really cool that you came up with something like this. I never knew you were this creative."

"Heh… you should've seen the stacks of books of poetry I wrote about you. That was some pretty sappy stuff right there."

…wait…

"Helga… was that little pink book I found… YOURS?"

"Yup. You got me. I was also the girl who impersonated your pen pal, and the one who got those Nancy Spumoni snowboots for Mr. Bailey that one Christmas."

Once again, my mind was racing. "Cecile Hart"… of course she'd chosen that name for her detective. The answers to questions that had been bugging me for months had just been casually dropped in my lap.

"I… feel kinda dizzy."

"Oh, crap, I've dumped too much on you at once, haven't I. Maybe you should go splash some water on your face or something, try to breathe it out. Bathroom's upstairs…"

"Yeah… yeah, that sounds like a good idea…" I stumbled up the stairs to the bathroom (my bathroom, I reminded myself). I splashed some water in my face and took my first good look at it in the mirror. My hair, which once had stood up all willy-nilly on my head, was now shorter and combed back. There were a few lines on my face and I had a bit of five o'clock shadow, but still… this was my face. It was something I could focus on as real.

It was then that I became aware of a hissing noise in the tub.

I looked down. An enormous monitor lizard, ankle-deep in the tub's standing water, looked back.

I yelped and scrambled out as fast as my legs could carry me, colliding with Helga again.

"Sorry," she said apologetically. "I guess I forgot to warn you about Kaiju."

"We have a GIANT LIZARD for a pet?" I stammered, aghast.

"Trudy wanted to get a pet a few years back, and when we got to the pet store, she immediately fell in love with the big guy."

"And you let her have it?"

"Well… it did remind me of the one I used to have, before Bob made me get rid of it. Besides… he's just as capable of unconditional love as any dog, cat, or pig." She stroked the beast lovingly. "Aren't you." The lizard nuzzled her affectionally. If I hadn't been looking right at it, I would have never believed it. "Daddy didn't mean to hurt your feelings, did he."

The needle that was hovering between "This is all a dream" and "This is really happening" was starting to drift back toward the dream theory.

"Jeez," she said, picking up on my confusion. "I just keep dumping this crazy stuff on you, don't I. I'm sorry for that."

"It's not the life I expected," I admitted. "But… it seems like it's a happy one."

"It is," she confirmed. "Wonderful family, stunningly beautiful and talented wife…"

I chuckled. "And humble."

"Very humble." She grinned and I was starting to feel like I understood how I could fall in love with her and agree to buying a monitor lizard for crying out loud…

"So," she continued, "technically Friday night is your day to cook, but seeing as you're out of it, I think I can give you a break."

"Well… I should at least help…"

"Cool. I was thinking fajitas. We're gonna need chicken filets, onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and I picked up some Hatch chiles at the farmers' market yesterday…"

I gathered the ingredients as she demanded them, while she began to chop them up rapidly.

"Sorry you have to deal with my inferior kitchen skills tonight," she apologized. "I know my way around cooking, you're much better than I am."

"Are you kidding? I can barely boil water. How can I be a better chef than you?"

"Is it that much of a shock that you picked up some skills over the y-OW! Mother-HUBBARD!" Helga had clearly picked up at least some habits from Bob. "I just cut the dickens out of my hand!"

"Are you okay?" I asked. "Let me see…" I said, grabbing for her hand.

"No… no, it'll be fine!" She jerked her hand away, but not before I got a look at the wound.

And the blue-green blood oozing from it.

"…what in…" I stammered.

"I can e-explain…" she stammered.

But I didn't need an explanation. This was just like last night's Z-Files.

This wasn't a dream… it was some kind of alien simulation.

And I was the guinea pig.


	6. Please Don't Freak Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Helga suffers a setback.

Chapter 6

Please Don't Freak Out

Shortman-Pataki Residence, Upper West Hillwood

-HELGA-

This was exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to avoid.

My husband had recently been the victim of a costumed criminal called the Memory Master, and had had the last twenty-five years of his memories drained away. Here I was, his wife, left walking on eggshells trying to ease him back into his forgotten life bit by bit, only to carelessly blow the biggest, most potentially damaging secret… that I wasn't entirely human.

This wasn't ordinarily a problem for us. If anything, Arnold's unconditional love for me, regardless of what I truly was, had, through the years, been a shining light that had kept me going even in the darkest of times.

But this was not the Arnold who had fallen for me in San Lorenzo, who had immediately accepted me the first time he'd seen my alien form, married me, fathered our two children… this was the Arnold whose last interaction with me had been as the victim of my insults. And now, just when he was starting to finally warm up to the idea that the two of us had a life together, I'd screwed up while cutting some onions for dinner and he'd seen that my blood was completely the wrong color.

"I can e-explain," I stammered. "Don't freak out… please don't freak out…"

"What is this?" he demanded. "Where am I, really? What are you? What do you want from me?"

"Honey, I-"

"Don't 'honey' me! I have to admit… you really, really had me going, This holodeck or Matrix or whatever the hell it is is really convincing and realistic, but it's over. You can't fool me anymore. So, you'd better let me out of here right now or-"

"It's not like that! If you'd just let me-" I moved toward him, which turned out to be entirely the wrong move. He jumped back, angrily. "Don't you come near me! I don't know what you are… android, alien, hologram, whatever… but I'm done listening to your lies! You are NOT my wife, this is not my house, this is not my family, and that you would dare to torment me by showing me my parents just tells me what kind of monster you really are!"

"…Daddy?"

It was then we noticed the toddler, on the verge of tears, standing in the kitchen doorway. Somehow, Robbie had found his way down and had heard everything. As if this situation hadn't been bad enough.

"Robbie, dear, please go back upstairs." I said carefully.

"But why is daddy being so mean to you, Mommy?"

"We're just, uh…"

"They're acting!" Trudy had come to my rescue. "They're working out a scene from Mommy's next book. Don't worry about it. C'mon…" She picked the sniffling boy up. "Let's go play. Anything you want."

"O-okay," he said, still not convinced everything was fine but willing to go along.

-Thank you,- I mentally sent. –I'm in your debt, dear.-

-Does that mean I'm getting that raise on my allowance?- she asked.

-We'll talk.-

"Well, are you happy now?" I asked. "You nearly traumatized your boy."

"We both know he's not real," he spat. "Nice touch, though. Playing on my emotions with a crying child. Whoever's running this thing really put in the effort."

That did it. I had nearly endless patience when it came to my orzo-headed inspiration, but that was the thing. It was nearly endless. And when it ran out… well, my temper is so legendary that it literally inspired my super-hero name.

"Get out." I said coldly.

"What did you say?"

"I said get out. I don't care where you go but you can't stay here, not if that's how you're going to be around our children. I will sit here and I will patiently take your abuse, because I'm fully aware you're not yourself, but our kids have done absolutely nothing wrong and they don't deserve to be subject to this. Get out, take a walk, cool down, whatever. When you're ready to listen, we can talk, but until then, I don't want to see you."

Arnold stared at me. I don't know what he was expecting out of me, but apparently it hadn't been that. "You're… just going to let me walk out of here?"

"I'm not your jailer, Arnold. You can go wherever. Just, please… until you're ready to actually talk to me, get out of my sight. You and I both need to cool down."

"Okay," he said simply, and walked out. As the door closed, the anger that had been simmering inside me suddenly evaporated and all I felt was a yearning emptiness. For a minute, I considered running after him, but no, he needed this time on his own to think things over.

I collapsed into a kitchen chair. I was in absolutely no condition to continue with dinner prep right now, but the kids needed to eat. I called in an order to Tony's, half-pepperoni, half-Hawaiian (I had no idea where Trudy got her taste in pizza, but it wasn't from me), and made my way upstairs.

"Change in plans for tonight, kids," I said. "Mommy's got some business to deal with. I ordered a pizza for you two. Hopefully I won't be gone too long."

"Is this a tights thing, mom?" Trudy asked.

"Yep." –I'll be dropping in on Uncle Gerald at the crime site. Gotta get started on finding the creep who stole your dad's memories,- I added mentally so Robbie wouldn't overhear. "Daddy's… taking a walk. Think you can hold down the fort?"

"You can count on me, mom." she answered.

"Just checking. I can always call Rhia if you think you can't handle it."

"Well… if you really think you have to call Rhia…" Her cheeks turned slightly aqua.

I chuckled. The ol' "precocious crush on the hot babysitter". Trudy wasn't nearly as adept at hiding her crushes as I was. "Nah… no need to bother her, I think. I trust you." I gave her a quick hug, then retreated to my room to change.

I pulled the latest version of my costume (Bridget's firm still provided them) from my closet. After shedding my day-to-day outfit, I wriggled into the experimental lycra polyweave (hmm, getting a little tight in the rear again, maybe I need to start hitting the treadmill) and let go.

I felt my bones and organs start to shift around as my skin took on its normal rose hue. My third and fourth fingers on each hand melted together, as did my two inner and three outer toes on each foot. My teeth, tongue and ears reshaped themselves, while a second set of arms filled the empty second sleeves. My wings and tail unfurled through the openings on my back, and horns pushed up from the top of my skull. Finally, my third eye reopened.

I steadied myself for the wave of disorientation that came with switching forms. Shifting your body's center of gravity and sensory input this drastically wasn't something you just did casually. Once adjusted, I finished dressing, pulling on my boots, gloves and visor, hit the button that would open the skylight I'd had installed in the room (it would automatically close and lock again after a minute) and launched myself into the evening sky.  
\--  
On a beautiful evening like this one, I usually preferred to take it slow, savor the joy and freedom of flight. But this was personal and I didn't want to leave my kids alone for any longer than I had to, so I made a beeline at my best speed for the Hillwood Museum.

The entrance was still cordoned off, but I take police tape as more of a suggestion than an order, so I stepped over it and headed inside, where Gerald was hard at work (or, y'know, standing around drinking coffee, whatevs).

"Hey, Geraldo, that better be decaf," I said, coming up behind him. "You know Pheebs hates it when you come home all wired."

"Damn, Pa-" He caught himself, remembering that he had to stick to my code name in public. "Sneakin' up on a brother like that. Especially one who's packin'"

"Your reaction's worth it every time, Johanssen," I replied. "Anything interesting for me?"

"We're just finishing up the initial sweep," he said. "It doesn't look like anything's been stolen, but we're doing a full inventory just to make sure. Doone should be back any minute with the results."

As if on cue, CSI officer Hannah Doone, once known as "Campfire Lass", returned. "I can confirm officaly that the perp dinnae take any of the invent- Saints! Is that-"

"Hey," I said, casually waving, wondering if she recognized me as the girl who'd once mugged her for her scout uniform.

"Ye know the Chief doesnae approve of working with her!" she continued, alarmed.

"That's 'cause the chief has a huge ego and doesn't want to admit she's a huge help. And, need I remind you, there is a giant bronze statue of this woman in the middle of Tina Park." Which I absolutely hate, by the way. Ugly thing. Waste of taxpayer money. "So I trust her."

Still, Olga ain't got no statue in the middle of the park. Heh heh.

"She's a vigilante! We shouldna be working with the likes-"

"Ahem," I reminded them. "Right here, I can hear everything. It's kinda rude."

"Anyway," Gerald interrupted, signaling he was done with this particular line of discussion. "If he didn't steal anything, then we're stuck for a motive."

I cleared my throat. "He did steal something, though. He stole m- the victim's memories. What if that was the goal all along?"

Gerald had clearly picked up on my line of reasoning. "Arnold knew a lot about ancient ruins, hidden civilizations…"

"And the Memory Master knew that. And now he's got access to everything Arnold knows. He could be going after the Green Eyes, or Mu, or the Golden Valley…"

Or worse… Arnold knew my secret identity. My family was in danger.

Gerald, to his credit, immediately picked up on my concern. "I'll alert Interpol. I'll also put a detail on Arnold and the rest of his family, in case the perp decides he wants to eliminate loose ends."

"Good call, Detective Johanssen," I replied, tone as neutral as possible so as not to betray my personal stake in the matter. No sense giving a lieutenant that was uneasy about vigilantes any ammo. "I'll keep an eye on them as well." As Gerald well knew.

"If you're done, Doone, go file your report. I'll wrap things up here." He waved the CSI on.

"Aye, detective," she said, still apprehensive about the detective's apparently-close relationship with an alien vigilante but aware that she was too low on the pecking order to have a say in it. She exited, leaving the two of us alone.

"So…" he said, dropping the pretense of the hard-boiled detective act and speaking as a concerned friend, "how's he doing?"

"Not good," I admitted. "I thought I was making progress with him, but then he accidentally found out about me being… well, you know."

"The elephant in the room, huh."

"Elephant nothing. That's a sperm whale in the room. Anyway… he really freaked out, wouldn't let me even start explaining. And then our fighting scared the crap out of Robbie, and I kind of snapped and kicked him out of the house."

"Mmm-mmm-mmm," he tutted disapprovingly.

"I know, I know… he's going through a lot and I should be more patient, but all I could see was my little boy crying and I just wasn't thinking. And now he's out there wandering around in an unfamiliar world convinced that he's in some kind of alien simulation…"

"Like that Z-Files episode?"

"Exactly like that Z-Files episode! Or, I dunno, maybe like that old 'Billy and the Professor'. Either one. *sigh* I'm not winning 'best wife' this week, that's for sure."

"Hey. You know me. I'll take any opportunity to give you crap. So believe me when I say that you're not to blame here. The one to blame is the scumbag who took my best friend's memory."

"Yeah, my brain knows that, but my hearts aren't convinced."

"Look, you know it absolutely kills me every time I say this…"

"Oh, if only."

"… but you're the best thing that ever happened to that boy, and I know deep inside he knows that too. So stop beating yourself up and go find him. And tell him the whole truth."

"Criminy, Former Tall Hair Boy, when'd you get smart?"

"Phoebe rubbed off on me. Now get lost."


	7. Lost, In Thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arnold gets some good advice from beyond.

Chapter 7

Lost, in Thought

The Streets of Hillwood

-ARNOLD-

I didn't know where I was going, honestly.

I had really been starting to accept that this could be my life, that this smart, beautiful, caring version of Helga could actually be the real thing, but then… glitch in the Matrix, I guess. The aliens or machines or whatever that had created this reality I was in apparently couldn't be bothered to get the color of human blood right. And so, I confronted my "wife", and she reacted… quite realistically, actually.

And then she threw me out.

And so, here I was, wandering the streets, looking for another crack in the façade, some sort of tell that this truly was a simulation. Because that was the only thing that made sense, that could make sense…

Because the alternative was that this was my reality and I had accused my wife of being a monster.

Unbidden, my mind drifted back to the time Sid had been convinced that Stinky was a vampire, due to some admittedly convincing circumstantial evidence. The truth had proved to be far more mundane.

But I had seen her bluish-green blood with my own eyes. This wasn't a case of misinterpretation. People simply did not have blood that color.

And yet… this world was consistent otherwise. I had seen no other signs that this was a simulation.

What if…

My thoughts were interrupted by a familiar jingle. Apparently, in twenty-five years, the Jolly Olly Man's theme tune was one thing that had not changed a bit, even if the truck itself had been updated to one of this era's clean-running models.

The driver pulled up alongside me. "Hey, Arnold!" he said, "You okay? You look lost…"

I looked up at the familiar face driving. "Chocolate Boy?"

The driver chuckled. "Nobody's called me that in twenty years. Not since I finally got off the brown stuff for good. Well, apart from a relapse here and there. But right now, I'm clean. I don't even think about tasting chocolate, smelling chocolate, touching chocolate…" He shook himself out of his trance. "Anyway, can I get you choco- can I get you anything before I finish my run for today?"

"Not really," I said. "Y'know… driving an ice cream truck seems like it wouldn't really help you stay off chocolate."

"Actually, it's been really helpful. I haven't fallen off the wagon since I started this job. So… what's wrong? You look down. Talk to me. I'll be like your bartender, but with ice cream."

I sighed. "I… kinda had a fight with Helga."

"Really? But you two always look so happy together!"

I didn't really know how to explain it. Well, you see, I apparently got attacked by some guy who steals memories and I've been regressed to my nine-year-old self, so I've had a lot of crazy new info dumped on me but it's okay because this all probably isn't real anyway. "It's complicated," I managed to reduce it to.

"Troubles in the sack?" he said, winking.

"Wha- ew! Why would you even… what's wrong with you!"

"Sorry, sorry! I thought we were both adults here, I didn't know you were so sensitive about it! Jeez!" He drove off, mortified at the breach of propriety.

Oh, god, he was right. I was an adult. An adult with two kids. And, despite my earlier dream of being married to Helga, I'm not so naïve as to still think the stork actually brought babies. Which meant… I had done… that… with Helga. At least twice.

Nope… definitely was not in the mood for ice cream.

Tina Park was mostly unchanged. The cherry tree in which I'd gotten stuck with Harold and Eugene was still here, as was the field where we'd played football against Wolfgang's sixth graders, the pond where I'd raced boats against Rex Smythe-Higgins III, and countless other memories. Whoever programmed this simulation had really done their homework… which made me question one particular detail.

In the middle of the park, there now stood a large bronze statue of a horned, bat-winged woman. For some reason, the sculptor had chosen to give the woman two sets of arms; her lower two fists were resting on her hips, and an American flag was clutched in one of her upper ones, held aloft. I mentally noted that the flag had fifty-two stars. Was this another glitch, or had the country indeed added two new states in the last twenty-five years?

In any case, my feet were killing me, reminding that I was no longer occupying a nine-year-old body but that of an early-middle-aged man. Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to sit down for a while…

_"Room for one more, Short Man?"_

_My head jerked around, "GRANDPA?"_

_"The one and only, Arnold. Now, what seems to have you in such a funk?"_

_"They… they told me you were…"_

_"Croaked? Demised? Pushing up the daisies? Bought the farm? Rung down the curtain, joined the choir invisible? Yep, all of the above. But that ain't gonna keep me away in your hour of need. So, what's the trouble, Short Man? Lost? Confused? Can't tell what's real anymore? Questioning the very nature of the universe?"_

_"It's… all so crazy. It's like I know in my mind that this world can't be real… and yet… a part of me wants it to be."_

_"Wow, that sounds like quite a pickle, Arnold. Half-sour at least. Maybe a garlic dill. Ooh, this one time I tried horseradish pickles. Boy, our plumbing paid the price for that, I tell ya!"_

_"It's just… it's Helga, Grandpa! She's been making my life miserable as long as I can remember! How in the world could I be married to her?"_

_"Arnold… remember that time I told you about that girl who used to torment me when I was your age? …you know, the age you think you are, not the age you actually are."_

_"Yeah… I think her name was… Gertie?"_

_"That's right. Ol' Gertie the Goblin, bane of my existence. I wonder whatever happened to her… Oh, that's right." He turned to me grinning that near-toothless grin of his. "I married her."_

_"You WHAT?"_

_"Honestly, Short Man, I can't believe you never put it together! I tell you this story about my childhood tormentor, who just happens to have the same last name as your grandmother?"_

_"I thought Grandma's name was Pookie!"_

_"You th- what kind of a name is Pookie? No, your grandma's name was Gertrude, Gertie for short! Who do you think your daughter's named after?"_

_"My daughter's name is Trudy…"_

_"Short for Gertrude! Jumpin' Jehosaphat, you sure don't have much on the ball today, do ya?"_

_"Give me a break, Grandpa, I've had a very stressful day!"_

_"Oh, right, with the memory loss and the shock after shock and the existential crisis. Well, every day can't be a turkey shoot, y'know?"_

_"I just… I wish I knew what was real."_

_"Oh, I can tell you what's real. Love is real, Short Man. The love Helga has for you, the love your children has for you, the love your parents have for you, the love that dragged me back from beyond the frickin' grave just to give you some sage advice when you needed it most._

_"But… this can't be real. I saw her bleed the wrong color."_

_"That's because her blood is the wrong color, Arnold. Your wife is very special. In a lot of ways. But understand this…. She's the best thing that ever happened to you. Don't push her away. Listen to her, Arnold. It'll all be clear when you wake up."_

_"..wait, I'm asleep?"_

_"Of course! I can't come to you when you're awake! There's rules, Short Man! The guy upstairs is a real stickler for them, and you don't wanna catch him in a bad mood, 'cause that's how you get plagues! Now, good luck with the little lady, I got a tennis date with Sigmund Freud in fifteen minutes! Good player, but the man never stops talkin' 'bout his mother. Toodle-oo!_

I awoke with a start, the giant bronze demon-woman statue still looming above me in the twilight. And the sound of quiet, even breathing behind me, letting me know I wasn't alone.

"Ugly, isn't it," my wife's voice spoke. "Doesn't look a thing like me."

I turned around.

Wow.

It was Helga. And yet… it was a Helga unlike any I ever expected. She had skin the color of her trademark bow, enormous leathery wings, two sets of arms, a long, flexible tail, and delicate pointed ears and small horns poking out of her loose mane of golden hair, and was clad in a tight black-and-magenta uniform that hugged every curve perfectly.

"So, uh…" She removed the mirrored visor she wore, revealing three sparkling sapphire eyes. "this is the real me. Not what you were expecting, is it."

"…wow." I managed.

"So, long story short… you remember on the way back from your folks, I told you about San Lorenzo and how we found them… how we got together? Well, I didn't tell you everything. We brought home more than just your parents and a few T-Shirts and snow globes… a few of us girls brought back an alien blood infection. Six months later, this happened. It actually led to a pretty epic adventure involving gangsters, ghosts, monsters, and an eldritch abomination bent on plunging the universe into chaos. The good guys won, BTdubs, so don't worry about that."

She sat down on the bench beside me. "I should have told you right away, but I was scared of how you'd react."

"Yeah, well… considering how I freaked out, you were probably right."

"No, I should have trusted you. You know how you reacted the first time you saw me like this? You accepted me right away. Didn't hesitate, didn't flinch when I slipped you a bit of my weird lizard tongue… that's when I knew for a fact that what we had was really going to last."

I looked into those eyes, those strange, yet soulful, and unusually numerous eyes. The utter alien-ness of this whole situation should have had me in even more doubt than I was, but I could see it, the pure love in those impossible, yet there, plain as day, eyes.

"This is real, isn't it."

"As real as it gets, bucko. You wanna go home?"

"I think I'd like to, yeah- whoa!" She had picked me up as if I weighed nothing.

"Trust me," she said, extending her wings. "You love this part."


	8. Full Disclosure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a family rediscovers each other and a villain plots to tear it apart.

Chapter 8  
Full Disclosure  
Above Hillwood  
-HELGA-  
It was as if a great cloud had suddenly cleared, and I could once again see a glimmer of the feelings my beloved once had for me. I had taken a risk, appeared to Arnold in my true, alien form, and counted on his pure, caring heart, on the belief that he would see past my inhuman exterior to the unchanged heart (metaphorically; I have two and they're actually very different from human hearts) that beat within.  
I should have never worried. Nine, or thirty-four, Arnold shall ever be Arnold.  
Of course, that didn't mean he didn't have a ton of questions for me as I hoisted him into my arms and lifted off from the center clearing of Tina Park, away from that eyesore of a tribute (the sculptor hadn't even gotten my tail right).  
"Are you really a superhero?" he asked, absolutely fascinated.  
"Well, if I wasn't, I'd look really stupid wearing these tights, wouldn't I?"  
"What kind of powers do you have?"  
"Well, besides, obviously, flying, I'm amazingly strong, mostly invulnerable, kinda fast, and I can generate intense heat and cold. That's really the main stuff. There's kind of telepathy, but it only works with people like me.  
"Like you?"  
"Anyone changed by the virus. Me, Phoebe, Rhonda, a couple of others… your daughter…"  
"Trudy's.. like you?" he asked.  
I nodded; I was going to have to explain this all eventually anyway. "I'm not human, but it turns out in my human form, I'm compatible enough with humans to have children. Now, normally I have to change back to my real form every once in a while, but… I guess as some kind of mechanism to make sure the baby was born healthy, I was permanently stuck in my human form throughout both of my pregnancies.  
"Now, both of our babies were born perfectly human, but the virus was present in their bloodstreams in a dormant form. There was always a chance that it would go active at some point, so we've been keeping a close eye on them. Well… it kicked in for Trudy a bit under two years ago. You were so proud of her. She took it like a real trooper. She's actually pretty eager to start training. Actually…. You didn't hear this from me, but I'm having Bridget make her her first costume for her tenth birthday."  
"This…. This is all pretty crazy, when you think about it, isn't it?"  
"Tell me about it, Arnoldo, it's the life we've been living for the last two and a half decades. We've seen some crazy stuff, even before I changed."  
"I guess, yeah… And you say, Phoebe and Rhonda were also changed?"  
"The three of us were the first, but it spread to some others either by choice or by circumstance. I had to infect Lila shortly after the whole thing started, to save her life, and Nadine asked Rhonda to infect her after we graduated high school as some kind of way to take their relationship to a new level. For a while, all of us were part of a loose team called the Weird Sisters."  
"The Weird Sisters?"  
"Yeah, sisters by choice, and well, weird. They were fun days, but eventually, the others either left town or retired. Phoebe decided to concentrate on her career and family, and Lila was never really that into it. I hear Rhonda and Nadine still suit up on occasion, but I'm really the only one who does it on a regular basis."  
"That sound kind of sad."  
"Eh… I guess I do miss the group, but it's not like we're not all still friends… we just don't beat up ill-intentioned scum anymore." I chuckled. "These days it's more like… game night."  
"Less busting crooks, more charades?"  
"It's an adjustment, but we all grow up sometime." Well, those of us who remember it, I reminded myself with a pang.  
Changing the subject, I began the descent back to our house. "And this concludes our flight… remember to return your tray to an upright position and we thank you for flying Pataki Air. We know you have a choice in alien mutant air travel and we're glad you chose us as your carrier."  
"Emphasis on 'carry'" noted Arnold as we set down on our front doorstep, grinning that big broad grin that has set my heart aflutter as long as I can remember.  
I let us in. "We're home, darlings!" I shouted.  
Robbie ran into the room. "Shhh, mommy… I'm twying to get away fwom the wed dwagon!"  
"Who seeks to escape the Red Dragon?" growled a voice from the next room. A reptilian face poked its way through the doorway, seemingly in mid-air.  
"Awp!" Robbie yelped. "The dwagon!"  
"Oh no!" I feigned. "Who will save us?"  
Robbie looked at me, as if I was an idiot. "You, mommy."  
"Me?" I asked in mock ignorance. "But I'm just your mommy."  
"Hey," the voice from the next room interrupted. "Is mom back? Did she find daddy?" Trudy emerged fully into the room, carrying Kaiju, who squirmed a bit in her grasp. Apparently our scale baby was reaching the limit of what he would put up with. She faked a gasp upon seeing me in my natural state. "Oh… oh my gosh! Temper! Here, in my house? I am such a huge fan!"  
"Layin' it on a bit thick there, sweetie," I said, giving her unruly blonde hair a ruffle. "It's all right. He knows."  
"Ohhh, thank god," Trudy sighed in relief. "I'm getting really close to my limit."  
"Trudy can't hold her human form for as long as I can," I explained to Arnold. "Her limit's about ten hours, perfect for a school day, but just in case, we made sure all her clothing has special breakaway openings for her extra limbs."  
"Yeah," Trudy confirmed, "and those ten hours are almost up, so if you'll excuse me, I have to go change. I'd d it here, but I once did it in front of Riva and she told me the noises it makes are really gross, so it's probably better if I shift in private."  
"WEAL Wed Dwagon!" Robbie shouted, jumping up and down excitedly.  
"That's right, squirt. Real red dragon." She set Kaiju down; the big reptile scurried off, clearly done with it all. "Back in a few." She bounded off for her room.  
I chuckled to myself. "Not exactly the family you imagined, is it,"  
"I… kinda did dream about us having a family once," he admitted sheepishly. "Right after Rhonda tried to pair us all up with that origami fortune-teller thing."  
I knew of course…. He'd told Gerald about it on the bus, and in my younger days I made sure to eavesdrop on all his bus conversations… but he didn't know that, at least this him didn't, so I asked "Really, and how did that go?"  
"Well, trust me when I say that this is a lot better."  
"Of course it is. Married to a superhero. It's a nine-year-old's dream."  
He laughed a bit, the first time I'd heard him do so since the attack. I'd really, really missed that laugh."Not that… I mean, that's cool too, but it was like a nightmare. You tricked me into marrying you, you treated me like dirt, you lazed around all day and wouldn't do any of the housework, I had to work for your dad…"  
"Ouch," I commiserated. Bob and I got along better these days… me and Trophy Wife #2, not so much (I had some issues with her being younger than me and just a generally unpleasant person), but Bob always did love his trophies… but Arnold had known him at Maximum Blowhard Level, so working for him must have felt like torture.  
"And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the stork dropped off these three horrible, horrible babies."  
I snickered a bit, unable to hold it in. "The stork? Really?"  
Arnold huffed. "Of course I know babies don't come from the stork. It was a dream. They're not supposed to make sense. The point is, it was horrible."  
"So how does this horror story end?" I asked. "Axe murder spree? Like in Family Maniac 2?"  
"Wha- no! Why would you think- NO!"  
"Aw, man, I forgot how easy it was to wind you up at this age. Okay, go on, tell me the ending."  
"Well, I finally got fed up, and I demanded to know WHY you were so terrible, because… I guess, deep down, I always had this feeling that maybe you weren't. And… that's kind of all I remember. But I woke up feeling kind of… at peace with the whole idea. That maybe if the two of us wound up together, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."  
I mulled this in my mind. I'd known that he'd had the dream, but we'd never discussed it in detail like this. So… even then, he'd known I was more than I let on, that I had a soft side under the scowl and the fists. I'd always thought of him as dense, drawn to the superficial like Ruth (I think she's a swimsuit model these days), Lila (well, that's what I thought then, actually… who knew she'd wind up being pretty deep?), and that blonde floozy at the beach (Huh… whatever happened to her, anyway?), but maybe he was sharper than I thought.  
But hey, I did win, didn't I?  
"So, no, this isn't the family I dreamed of. But that's a good thing. You're all so wonderful. I just wish I could remember any of it."  
"Hey, it's not like it's all been sunshine and rainbows. There were fights… we even had a couple of messy breakups. Then there were the three weeks I was captured by the Irkens and forced to work in their Cosmic Food Court – don't ask – and the Near-Apocalypse of 2027… but we came through all of it, stronger."  
"The point is… I can see how happy we all are together. Though I'm still a little iffy about the lizard…"  
"Pfft. I bet you would've preferred a pig."  
"Hey, don't knock pigs. They're smart, loyal…"  
"Tasty…"  
"Helga…"  
"Hey, just messing with you. I know you were attached to that overgrown sausage link, even if I didn't 'get it'."  
"Abner's gone too, isn't he," Arnold said sadly. Poor thing… having to say goodbye all over again to those he already lost long ago.  
"Hey, he lived a full life for a pig, but yeah… he's wallowing in the Big Mud Hole in the Sky now. That's life, I guess. You say goodbye. But you also get to say hello." I directed his attention to Robbie, quietly playing with his Legos.  
"How are you so good at saying the right thing?" He asked me, smiling.  
"Well, I have spent most of my life working with words," I reminded him.  
"Okay, Daddy," called Trudy. "All done… I'm coming out."  
She exited her room, her skin now a fire-engine red, her eyes now a trio, luminous emerald split by vertical pupils, her wings, lower arms, and tail all in evidence, her tiny horns poking bumps in her blue knit cap. "So… what do you think?"  
"I think that I'd be happy with you no matter what you are," Arnold said, smiling broadly.  
"Yeah, well, I hope you keep that in mind when I start dating," She said.  
"Hey I'm sure I'll be very reasonable with any boy you bring home."  
"Uh, yeahhhh… boy… sure…"  
-Go easy on him, dear… he doesn't remember any of your Daddy-Daughter talks.-  
-But "Daddy, I think I might be into girls" was kind of an important one… and it was just last week!-  
-Hey… if he's the boy I remember, he'd still accept you without hesitation. If he can handle us being aliens, liking girls is nothing.-  
-I guess so.-  
Our family was starting to mend together again. But without Arnold's memories, there would always be something missing.  
I had to get them back. And to do that, I would have to find the Memory Master.  
But how was I going to do that with absolutely no leads?  
\--  
A run-down motel room in the bad part of town  
-?-  
I inserted the cylinder into the playback machine. Soon, now… soon my enemy's secrets would be mine, and I would be able to rain vengeance down, not only on his filthy football head, but on his vile beloved and that friend of his, the one with the tall hair.  
The screen hummed to life, revealing the world through his eyes. Was this his bedroom? How dare he live in such comfort, while I have had to struggle?  
And there she was, another of the many thorns in my side, parading around in her underwear like the strumpet she no doubt was.  
"Hey," she said. "You don't mind if I slip into something more comfortable, do you?" she purred.  
"I never do," my accursed foe responded. I turned away in disgust, having no desire to see her remove what little clothing she still had on, reaching for the button that would switch to a different memory. The damn thing had been damaged when I had stolen it, and eve after repairing it, I could not control which memory it showed me. It was permanently locked on "shuffle" mode. Curse that McGuckett in whatever hell his soul languished in. Wait… was he even dead? Oh, who cares?  
I stopped when I heard not the sound of clothing being removed but a grotesque, inhuman sound, of flesh shifting and twisting.  
"Ah…. That's better. I know, I know… it's gross when I do it."  
"I never think you're gross, darling."  
No.  
This couldn't be possible.  
My nemesis's beloved… this Helga Pataki… she was not only the cherished partner to the bane of my existence. She was Temper, heroine beloved by millions.  
This was…  
…marvelous.  
I would not only have my revenge. I would be the one to slay a hero.


	9. We'll Always Have Chez Paris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's date night, and Gerald makes a discovery

Chapter 9  
We'll Always Have Chez Paris  
Pataki-Shortman Residence  
Morning of the 14th  
-ARNOLD-  
So, I was warming up to the idea of being married to Helga G. Pataki. That didn't mean, however, that I was quite ready for what being married to her entailed… namely, sleeping in the same bed as her.  
And so, I had elected to spend the night on the downstairs couch which, admittedly, hadn't been too bad. I awoke somewhat refreshed early in the morning, before anyone else. I got up from the couch, stretched in my pajamas , and wandered into the living room. My eye fell on that book from yesterday, The Monster Princess and the Egghead Knight.   
Well, what better way to get to know Helga than through the work she said she was proudest of?  
I took my seat back on the couch and cracked open the book, briefly glancing at the title page:  
THE MONSTER PRINCESS AND THE EGGHEAD KNIGHT  
by  
HELGA G. PATAKI  
with illustrations by  
Rhiannon O. Lloyd  
I turned to the next page, the dedications.  
For Phoebe, my light in the dark  
For Rhonda, my rock in the ocean  
For Dr. Bliss, my calm in the storm  
For Stella and Miles, for Phil and Gertie, who showed me what family can be  
For Trudy, who showed me I can be family  
and of course  
For Arnold, my soul, you are always, and forever will be, in my heart  
If I'd know Helga was capable of creating something this beautiful back in the day, would I have ever chased any of those other girls? And this was just the dedication page.  
And so I let myself be immersed in the tale of a far-off kingdom, ruled by a powerful but arrogant king, boastful of his vast wealth, his huge kingdom, and his lovely daughter Ophelia. Thinks take a turn when he refuses alms to a poor old woman, who turns out to be a witch. The witch curses his unborn second daughter. The king ignores the curse, believing it to be nonsense, but is shocked when his second daughter is born with scaly skin, claws, horns, sharp teeth, wings, and a spiked tail. He demands the child be killed, but the princess cares for her in secret until the day comes for her arranged marriage. The child, named Helene by the princess, is discovered and cast out of the castle, where she must make her own way in the world.  
I had just gotten to the part where Helene makes her first human friend, a young alchemy scholar named Penelope, when I heard footsteps. I hurriedly put the book down, a bit ashamed to be caught reading a book for children at my supposed age. A bit foolish on my part; one thing Helga could definitely not be accused of was writing down to her young readers. She made no attempt to sugarcoat Helene's unfortunate situation or shy away from the more unpleasant side of life (the Queen's slide into depression after birthing a seeming monster, the king's mistreatment of his family… knowing what I knew about Helga, a lot of it was very familiar).  
The footsteps turned out to belong to Trudy, who had resumed her human form and was dressed in a green plaid shirt, blue cutoff shorts over black tights and heavy boots, and her ever-present blue knit beanie cap.  
"Morning, daddy," she said warmly, moving in for a hug.  
"Hi, Trudy." I said as she delivered her embrace. "Is your mom up yet?"  
"Mom's…. not exactly a morning person," she replied as I followed her into the kitchen. "Even when she doesn't do her night patrol, she likes to sleep in on weekends." She retrieved a couple of cans of dog food from the cupboard.  
"Is that what Kaiju eats?" I asked.  
"Pretty much. The chicken flavor is his favorite. I add a couple of raw eggs and some celery for roughage… believe me, you do not want to deal with a constipated lizard… and he's good to go. Don't worry, I talked to a vet to make sure this was what he needed."  
"So, you're into reptiles, huh?" I asked, hoping to start a conversation as Trudy prepared a lizard's breakfast. Helga wasn't the only one I needed to get to know.  
"Big time," she replied, smiling. "It all started when I was four and you took me to the natural history museum. We went to the dinosaur exhibit, and you told me all about these giants that used to rule the world a hundred million years before the first human was even close to evolving. From that moment on, I was fascinated by dinosaurs. Then, when I was six, you guys decided that I was ready for my first pet. You did your best trying to sell me on a pig, and I had to admit that the little guy was cute, but that was before I saw an actual living dinosaur. Sure, it wasn't actually a dinosaur, not really, but it was the closest thing I'd ever see. I fell in love immediately. Of course, before we took him home, you made sure that I learned everything there was to learn about monitor lizards, and that interest spread to reptiles in general."  
I realized then that I had the perfect story for her. "So… did I ever tell you the time your great-grandma and I broke into an aquarium to save a tortoise?"  
Her eyes brightened. "Is this the one I'm named after?" She asked.  
"That's right. I was in fourth grade, around the same age you are. The class was going on a field trip to the aquarium. I'd never been there before. The gang was talking up all the exhibits, but the one they were most excited about was something called 'Lockjaw'…"  
"…and so, Lockjaw swam out to sea, and thankfully, the aquarium never did find out who let him out because what we did was very illegal and you probably should never do anything like that." I added that last part because I realized that Trudy could very easily get the wrong idea from my story. The next thing I knew, she could've been painting herself with tiger stripes and freeing all the animals from the zoo. One Curly was more than enough, thank you.  
"You two bonding?" Helga had finally woken up and was rummaging in the cabinet. She was wearing a fuzzy pink robe and bunny slippers an looked a bit out of it.  
"Oh, daddy was just telling me the Lockjaw story again." Trudy answered, smiling.  
"Wait… you've heard that story before?" I asked. She'd been rapt the entire time I told the story, as if every word had been new.  
"A whole bunch of times, actually," she admitted. "But it's not like I ever get tired of hearing Great-Grandma Gertie stories."  
"But why did you act like you hadn't?"  
"Probably because we both needed it. You know… we needed to have that moment where it felt like everything was right again."  
"That's… really mature of you," I said.  
"She gets it from you, y'know." Helga said. "Coffee?"  
"Cream, two sugars," Trudy piped up.  
"You're not that mature yet, dear." Helga replied with a smirk. "I was talking to Daddy."  
I guess the 34-year-old me liked coffee, but the thought of it grossed me out. "No thanks. Maybe some hot cocoa?"  
"Sure, hon." She got to work making my cocoa while her pot of coffee was brewing. "I get that you don't remember liking it, but frankly, I'm not sure I could live without the stuff. It helps that caffeine's one of the few things that works on me normally."  
She set our drinks down, cocoa for me, milk for Trudy, and black coffee for herself. "So… what's on the agenda for today, Tru?"  
"Well, the gang's got the big game against the fifth graders at Gerald Park, and afterwards I'm gonna hang with Riva doing little of importance."  
"All right, just be home by dark," Helga said, sipping her coffee. "Your father and I are going to be going out tonight."  
I nearly did a spit take. "What?"  
"We've had plans for a month," she answered. "Chez Paris is having their grand reopening tonight. They're supposed to have this new hotshot chef, and it was crazy hard to get reservations, but I called in some favors. It is our special place, after all."  
"A date? You and me?"  
"We are husband and wife," she reminded me "We do things like this on nights like tonight. Besides… it'll give us a chance to talk uninterrupted… you can get to know us better."  
And just like that, I'd been thrown in the deep end. This was all so new, and now I was on a date. A real one. I was nowhere close to ready.  
\--  
Interlude: Sometime that evening  
Hillwood PD  
Gerald hated weekend shifts. Weekends were for being home with Phoebe and Akiko, not for being stuck in his office mired in paperwork. The life of a police detective was hardly as exciting and glamorous as TV and movies made it out to be. A lot of it was dull, routine busywork. And waiting.  
He'd put in a request with the FBI for all their information on the Memory Master yesterday and it still hadn't gone through yet. Just what were they doing there, anyway? How was it that in an age of instantaneous information retrieval, it took this long to get a response from the Feds?  
His B-Watch beeped. Phoebe was calling, no doubt wondering he would be home. "Hey, Kāsan…" he answered as the holoscreen popped up. "I miss you so much, babe. Weekend shifts suck."  
"Tell me about it," groaned Phoebe. "They called me in for a routine exploratory procedure, and it turns out I wasn't even needed! Can you believe it?"  
"I can believe it. That hospital's whole computer setup is like something out of the 20s. They're probably not even using crystal storage… like I'm one to talk, right? The precinct's still using monitors."  
"Heavens," replied Phoebe. "It's like stone knives and bearskins."  
"I know, right? Anyway, I promise I'll be home as soon as I can. I'm really just waiting on that Memory Master report for Helga."  
"Thank you for that. It'll be a huge help for her." She sighed. "I couldn't imagine something like that happening to you."  
"As opposed to the safe, eventless life of a cop?"  
"Don't even joke about that, Tōsan. Come home safe."  
"You know I always do." He air-kissed Phoebe as they said their goodbyes to each other, the resumed his grind.  
It was roughly at nine when a beep finally alerted him to the e-mail he'd been waiting for. He rapidly clicked it open, only to be dumbstruck at the information contained within.  
Because it was impossible. According to the report, the Memory Master had been found four days ago. And there was no way that he could be the one that attacked Arnold. He had to let Helga know as soon as possible.  
He was about to dial her when he heard footsteps outside. Hopefully, this was Reynolds here to relieve him and he could finally go home.  
"Yo, Dan! Thank god. I just got some major information in the Shortman case and I have to-"  
"You will not be going anywhere, Detective Johanssen…. Except to hell."  
A robed, hooded figure, brandishing a pistol, entered the office. "Courtesy of the Memory Master," he continued in his electronically distorted voice.  
"C'mon, man," Gerald said, hoping to keep the figure talking as he reached for his own gun. "We both know you're not the Memory Master." He tensed, pistol in hand, ready to move….  
"Does it really matter? You won't be telling anyone."  
They both fired….  
\--  
Roughly 6 in the evening, Pataki-Shortman residence  
I was wrestling with my tie when the doorbell rang. "That'll be the babysitter," Helga called from upstairs, still getting ready. "Can you get that? Making myself beautiful is a delicate procedure that can't be interrupted."  
She's plenty beautiful without the work, I thought to myself, as I walked to the door.  
The babysitter was a woman in her early twenties, a bit shorter than me. Her black hair was cut short on one side and streaked with pink and purple, and she had multiple piercings, three in each ear, one in her nostril, and one in her eyebrow. She wore khaki cargo pants, a camo-patterned tank-top, and steel-toed boots.  
"Are… you the babysitter?" I asked.  
"…seriously?" she asked in response, clearly confused. "Is this some kinda strange game or something?"  
"I'm just saying, you kind of um…" How was I going to put this…  
"Oh, thank god, there you are," the woman said, looking past me. "Your husband's messing with me again. He's acting like I haven't known you guys literally my entire life."  
"Yeah, he'll do that," Helga said from behind me. I turned and WOW.  
She wore a fiery red dress that perfectly accentuated her figure, accompanied by matching pumps and a ruby heart pendant with matching ruby earrings. Her blonde hair was in an elaborate updo, her makeup understated yet perfect.  
"Uh… He-honey…" The pet names still weren't coming easy to me, "Is this really the babysitter?"  
"Arnold… this is Rhia. Rhonda's sister."  
Okay… NOW I could see the resemblance. Particularly in the facial shape, eyes, and nose. "Ohhh…." I said, "right, you mentioned her…"  
"I'm really sorry about the misunderstanding," Helga apologized. "Arnold's… not exactly himself these past couple of days."  
"What, does he have amnesia or something?"  
"Basically, yeah," Helga confirmed.  
"Ohhhhh…. Is this a tights thing?"  
"'Fraid so. For tonight, though, we're just gonna try for a normal date night."  
"Wia!" Robbie came bounding into the foyer, clearly overjoyed to see the junior Lloyd daughter.  
"Heya, football-head junior!" Rhia responded, scooping the toddler up. "Who's ready to have fun tonight?  
"Meeeee!" answered Robbie, giggling.  
"Did you bring it?" Trudy had joined us.  
"There's my girl," Rhia said. I noticed a slight aqua blush from my daughter upon receiving attention from the young woman. "And yes, I brought it. Once R-O-B-B-I-E goes to B-E-D, I'm gonna make us a big bowl of my patented nacho popcorn and we're gonna sit down and watch the original Jurassic Park."  
"The one from the 90s?" Trudy looked a bit skeptical.  
"Trust me, once we get into it, you won't even miss modern CGI."  
"Yeah… they really don't make 'em like that anymore," Helga agreed, fussing with my botched Windsor knot. "There isn't enough love for practical effects these days. Everything's all computers. There's no weight to anything. This one time back in high school, the whole gang went to SeattleCon and we saw this awesome panel on gore effects…. They showed us how they did the chestburster in Alien and the exploding head in Scanners… It was great. Sheena was throwing up for an hour." Another story from our past I had no memory of.  
Rhia raised an eyebrow. "Did… you just go off on a 'kids these days' rant, Hel?"  
"Oh, my god, you're right," Helga groaned. "That's it. Mark the calendar. Today's the day I officially became old. C'mon, Arnold… let's get out of here while I still have my own teeth." She ushered us out of the house.  
"So that was Rhonda's sister…" I said. "Not what I expected."  
"She was born between sixth and seventh grade. I sorta became a surrogate 'godsister' to her. Guess I related a lot. You know, having this accomplished, beloved, larger-than-life sibling who's much older than you… sound familiar?"  
It did…. It was pretty much a direct mirror of her own relationship with her own older sister.  
"Don't get me wrong," Helga continued. "Rhonda was a really good older sister, but she didn't understand Rhia's situation like I did. That she felt the need to live up to someone she could never be. I helped her understand that she didn't have to, that she could be herself, find her own way. And when I got my chance, I was able to give her her first break."  
"The kids seem to like her. Trudy in particular."  
"You noticed that too, huh."  
"I recognize a young crush when I see it. I've certainly had enough of them myself."  
"Yeah, I remember when you went all goofy over that substitute teacher."  
"I just hope it ends less embarrassingly for her. Once she moves on to a girl her age, she'll be in better shape."  
She smiled at me. "It really doesn't matter at all to you, does it. Even as a kid."  
"Should it? Feelings are feelings. If she's interested in girls instead of boys, there's really no difference."  
"Not every dad gets that, y'know. Every day, you find another way to remind me that I was really lucky to meet you."  
\--  
Chez Paris was virtually the same as it had been that Valentines' Day, twenty-five years ago. A few minor changes to the décor, but otherwise, the sight of it took me back to my first real date. A date with a mystery girl who I never saw again… or so I thought. In reality, I had seen her nearly every single day for most of my conscious life. A girl now holding m hand as we entered the bistro."  
"Pataki-Shortman, party of two," she informed the maître-d', who I recognized as an older version of the snooty waiter from both our nights here.  
"Ah, oui," he said, far more cordial than he had been back then. "Councilwoman Pataki, Professor. Shortman, it is a pleasure to see you tonight. Ze chef 'as been anticipating your arrival, and 'e wished me to inform you zat tonight's dinner shall be on ze house."  
"Really?" I asked. "That's nice of him."  
"Yeah… too nice," mulled Helga. " I'm sorry, I can't accept that."  
"I am afraid ze chef is most insistent. Your table is ready, so if you 'ave a seat, ze chef will be out shortly."  
We were led to a table near the middle of the dining room and seated. "I don't see why you're so nervous," I said. "Sometimes people just want to do nice things for other people."  
"I know, but as an elected official, I have to be extra careful. Some 'favors' can be taken the wrong way, if you get what I mean. And some people are definitely expecting 'favors' in return."  
"I guess…" She had a point. As a politician, she had to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. "I'm sure if you explain it to the chef, he'll under-"  
"Arnold! Helga! It is so very good to see you! I am so glad you could be here today!"  
"Mr. Hyunh?"  
"Yes! I am new head chef here! It is always my dream to be head chef at fine restaurant, and finally I have my chance!"  
"That's terrific!" I said. Well, now it all made sense.  
"Do not worry. I take care of everything. You will be first to try all my new dishes on the menu. I combine traditional French cuisine with flavors from my own country. Trust me! You will like it! To start… escargot, in my signature sriracha-garlic butter. Followed by French onion pho."  
"Sounds great to me, Mr. H. Bring it on!" Helga enthusiastically replied.  
"Excellent. I send sommelier to take your wine order."  
Wine? But I'm only… right, I somehow keep forgetting I'm supposed to be an adult.  
"Um… you know what, we'll stick to mineral water," Helga responded, noting my discomfort. "We haven't decided which of us is driving home yet."  
"…and then he remarries a second time, to an even younger woman. Is there a word for a midlife crisis that lasts two decades?"  
Helga paused to take a bite of her steak au poivre (seasoned with southeast Asian chiles, in a lemongrass cream sauce). She'd spent the dinner conversation talking about places we'd been, things we'd done, seeing if any would spark a memory; so far, none had. When the entrees arrived, the topic had shifted to the status and whereabouts of her family. Olga, it turns out, was now the principal of Hillwood High, married to an accountant, with three children of her own, ranging from college-age to early teens. Big Bob, after having fallen on hard times after the collapse of the beeper market, an ill-fated scheme involving the Hillwood mob, and being divorced by Miriam, had rebounded with a successful Internet-based appliance wholesaling company, and had remarried twice to much younger women. He'd also apparently become a far better grandfather than he had been a father.  
"What about your mother?" I asked, in between bites of my coq au vin (Mr. Hyunh's version was braised in a Vietnamese rice wine reduction).  
"Well… after I came home after graduating from Columbia, Grandma Geraldine decided it was time to retire, so Mom moved back home to South Dakota to take over her ranch. She remarried too, to the owner of the neighboring ranch. Guy named Max Russel, real grizzled old cowboy type, looked like… you know, that guy, always played the grizzled old cowboy in all those movies… not Lee Marvin, the other one… Sam Elliot! Yeah. Max looks just like Sam Elliot. The kids love him, too. Robbie calls him 'Gwampa Cowboy.'"  
"I guess not every kid is lucky enough to have three sets of good grandparents around."  
"Well… two and a half. Bob's wife is kind of a see you next Tuesday, if you get what I mean." I didn't, but I chose not to ask. "But she knows better than to mess with me."  
"I think most of the population of Washington knows better than to mess with you," I joked.  
"Or I throw a truck at 'em," agreed Helga. "So… how's this matching up to our first time?"  
"It's not what I expected at all," I admitted. "But… I've kinda been learning to expect the unexpected."  
"Well… looks like the desert special's a mango-durian crème brulee. I heard that if you can get past the smell, it's supposed to be amazing. Feeling adventurous?"  
"If I wasn't, I should probably be with someone else."  
\--  
Dessert finished and the bill settled, the time had come to walk back to the car. All in all, it had been the best date I'd ever been on.  
…okay, so I'd only really been on two (three if you count that time at the cheese fair with Lila, and since she didn't consider it a date, I really shouldn't), but this had definitely blown the other away.  
"I had a wonderful time," I said.  
"Me too. So… is anything starting to come back yet?"  
"I'm sorry," I apologized. "It's… still just a big blank. But I guess… I'm starting to get a real sense of why I love you."  
"….you… do love me?"  
"I… I guess I kinda do." I said.  
"It's a start," She said.  
We looked into each other's eyes. Her lips began to close in on mine. My eyes closed and my lips puckered in anticipation…  
BeeeebeeebeeeebeeeBEEEEE!  
"Aw for Criminy's sake!" Helga snarled, pulling back. "Every damn time!"  
I opened my eyes again. "What's wrong?"  
"B-Watch's going off. It better not be another telemarketer or I swear I am gonna melt their stupid call center…" She checked. "Phoebe? I don't know why she'd be messaging me, I told her I was gonna be—" She suddenly trailed off, looking horrified.  
"What is it?" I asked  
"It's Gerald. He's been shot."


	10. Waiting is the Hardest Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which: a reunion

Chapter 10  
Waiting is the Hardest Part  
Hillwood General, waiting room, morning of the 15th  
-HELGA-  
If I'd known I'd be here this long, I would have changed first. As it was, I felt really out of place sitting here in a hospital room in my date night getup. To my right, Arnold sat, still in his own eveningwear, having finally fallen asleep after an entire night of worried pacing.  
Gerald had been brought in very late last night when Dan Reynolds, the detective who was due to succeeded him, had discovered him passed out in his office. He'd somehow managed to use his own tie to stop the blood loss from the gunshot wound, likely saving his life, but had passed out afterwards due to pain and shock. He was currently in surgery; the bullet had lodged in a very hard-to-get-to place and removing it was a very delicate procedure.  
Phoebe was not the attending physician, and was not the least bit happy about it. Medical ethics tended to frown upon a surgeon operating on their spouse; Phoebe knew this well (she was, in fact, on the hospital's board of ethics), but that didn't mean she was going to take it lying down. At the moment, she was attempting to get an update out of the waiting room receptionist. Okay, perhaps that wasn't the right word. What she was actually doing was going into precise surgical detail about what she would do to each of the receptionist's internal organs if she didn't get an update on her husband's condition right away. With her small frame, adorable face and squeaky voice, the overall effect was like listening to Minnie Mouse describe her recent killing spree. Despite our grave situation, it was all I could do to keep myself from laughing. For her part, the receptionist was taking it calmly. Either she was used to dealing with the irrationality of concerned loved ones, and aware that you just had to let them burn themselves out, or (and this was probably more likely) she was really jaded.  
"…and then… I will take your spinal column, duodenum, and gall bladder and fashion them into my own personal tetherball court!" she was continuing to the oblivious receptionist, who I could see now was fiddling with something on her phone (B-Watches hadn't quite reached full market saturation yet), having checked out of the conversation a while ago. Perhaps she did deserve the verbal beatdown she was getting. Nevertheless…  
"Okay, Pheebs…" I finally spoke, getting up to interrupt her tirade. "We don't need this kind of thing coming up at the trial." I took her by the arm and led her back to her seat. "You'd probably get further talking to the desk itself than her, anyway."  
"I know," she sighed. "It's just…. so frustrating! I have the skills necessary to help Gerald… but I'm the one person in this building who isn't allowed to do anything! What kind of logic is that, I ask you?"  
"Hey… hey. Now, Rani might not be as good a surgeon as you are…"  
"Hey!" Stinky Peterson (or rather Stanley Peterson, as he now called himself "on account'o no one's gonna hire a lawyer named Stinky") objected. "That there's my wife and mother of my future young'un you're talkin' 'bout!"  
"You know what I mean! The point is, she's totally qualified to do this procedure. Gerald is in good hands even if they aren't yours."  
"But…" Faced with insurmountable logic, Phoebe relented. "I thought it was my job to reign you in with common sense."  
"Eh, it's fun to change things up once in a while. Sit down, and I'll get you a cup of the hospital's awful coffee. Criminy, Pheebs, when are you gonna get a Moonpenny's up in here?"  
"It's not up to me, Helga. I wish it was, but it isn't."  
I got up again to go to the hospital café. Phoebe would be in good hands until I returned; besides Stanley and my dozing hubby, Timberly and her husband were here with their three kids, and Patty and Harold had called in to tell us they were on their way.  
As I exited the waiting room, I collided with one person I had definitely not been expecting to see. We were both thrown back on our butts, her dropping her overnight bag. "Ow," Rhonda Robinson-Lloyd groaned, rubbing her posterior.  
"Jeez, Princess," I commented, helping her back up. "You should really warn a girl before you drop in unannounced from the other side of the country."  
"But Helga, darling, if I'd done that, I would have never gotten to see the look of surprise on your face. That would have been quelle tragique, n'est-ce pas?"  
"Dial it down, Rhon. It's too early in the day to deal with this level of pretentiousness. Besides… you're not really dressed for it."  
"Yes…. About that…" She glanced at my crimson cocktail dress, designer pumps and jewelery, then at her own ensemble of yoga pants, Columbia sweatshirt, and sneakers. And yet, still somehow drop-dead gorgeous, the insecure little voice at the back of my head spoke up. "Is this, like, some kind of Freaky Friday thing, only instead of brains we swap wardrobes?"  
"Arnold and I rushed over from a night out," I explained. "What's your excuse?"  
"Well, it's not like I was going to wear my Gianna Verducci designer originals while flying coach, was I?"  
I glared at her. "Who are you and where did you hide Rhonda's body?"  
"You try getting first class tickets to Hillwood on literally no notice," she huffed. "So… how's Gerald."  
"In surgery. We know absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, Phoebe's going out of her mind and we still have no leads on Arnold's memory."  
"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked hopefully.  
"Unless you've miraculously gained the power to restore lost memories with your farts, I'm afraid not." I sighed. "Look, it's not that I'm not really happy to see you, it's just a bad time and you're gonna be getting both barrels of my sarcasm."  
"Honey, if I couldn't take the heat, I wouldn't've lasted long as your friend, would I?"  
I smiled. It really was good to see her. While Phoebe is and always will be my best friend, Rhonda had, in her own way, become an equally deserving claimant to the title. Phoebe was the kind of friend that would always be there, always back me in whatever I was doing… i fact, in the early days, I tended to treat her more like a lackey than an equal, something that I've worked hard to remedy in the years since. Rhonda was different; she was the friend that would call me on my bullshit when I got out of line, who would challenge me to do things that were out of my comfort zone, and in return I would demand the same of her. We didn't get to hang out nearly enough these days, and it sucked that it took something like this to bring us back together again.  
"I was about to make a coffee run," I said. "If you want to help, I could use another pair of hands."  
"Lead on, Hellcat," she responded.  
\--  
"Truth is, I was going to get in touch with you anyway before the current crisis," she said, arms full of the hospital cafeteria's excuses for coffee and Danish, "but when I got the news I figured it could wait."  
"Well, you're here now, so you might as well tell me."  
"All right… try not to drop anything…. ImaginationFactory wants to make 'Monster Princess' into an animated movie."  
I almost did drop something. "You're kidding! …wait… those aren't the guys behind those awful 'Henchmen' movies, are they? I hate those things. And of course Robbie adores them, so I'm constantly exposed to them…"  
"No, no, no… InmaginationFactory are the producers of movies like Tae Kwan Doe and The Guide to Proper Sea Monster Care."  
"Oh… those were really good. Well, the first two Tae Kwan Doe movies, anyway. The last one was kind of milking it."  
"Really? Courtney says she thinks the second one is the weakest and the third is a real return to form. Anyway… I think you should write the screenplay."  
"Me? I don't know the first thing about screenplays."  
"You didn't know the first thing about childrens' books, and yet you won a Newberry on your first try. Please… you're the only one worthy to do your vision justice.. Monster Princess was a masterpiece, and I'm not just saying that because I was in it. Though that is a factor."  
"You can't prove anyone was based on you!" I protested.  
"Please," she scoffed. "Everyone was based on everyone. Jerome, the smooth-talking bard who falls for Penelope the brainy alchemst, Pamela the seemingly rough blacksmith's apprentice whose plain appearance hides a tender heart, Sam and Filthy, the bumbling-but-loveable thieves… Miranda, the spoiled merchant's daughter who flees an arranged marriage to be with her true love, Natalie the butterfly maiden…"  
"…okay, granted, some similarities may be found if you look closely enough…" I admitted.  
"…anyway… I have confidence that you can do it. Please. I don't want to see your story butchered by whatever Hollywood hack the studio fobs it off on. It needs your guiding hand."  
"I'll… think about it. I kind of have other worries right now."  
"Like I said, I wasn't going to bring it up. Take your time on it. What's going on now is a lot more important."  
We had returned to the waiting room at this point. By now, It had filled up even more… Harold and Patty had arrived, as had Gerald's parents, Martin and Sarah.  
"Hey, everyone," I called. "Look what I found in the hall."  
"Hello, all." Rhonda continued. "Nadine wishes she could have come too, but it was really short notice. Oh, Timberly, I haven't seen you in forever! I see you had another boy, you simply must tell me everything there is to know about him!"  
It was like that for a while, the gang catching the newcomer up on recent gossip, and Rhonda reciprocating ("You didn't hear this from me, but I expect we'll be hearing an engagement announcement from Eugene very soon.") I settled back down in between Arnold and Phoebe and resumed waiting. Arnold finally stirred from his slumber after I plopped down.  
"Welcome back," I said.  
"Uhh…." he groaned. "I can't believe I fell asleep."  
"Don't worry about it, hon. Nobody's holding it against you. Worrying is super exhausting.  
He looked around. "Whoa, when did everyone get here?"  
"While you were in dreamland. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the Gammelthorpes showed up soon. Nothing brings the gang together like disaster."  
The conversation came to a sudden hush as a petite, dark-skinned and -haired woman in scrubs entered the room. "Ahem," Rani began, her expression betraying nothing, "The surgery was successful, and Gerald is on his way to a full recovery."  
The gathered let out a collective relieved exhale. "Can I see him?" asked Phoebe.  
"For now, immediate family only. He's resting, so try to be as quiet as possible." Phoebe, along with Timberly and the Johanssens (Timberly's husband remained behind, seeing as their two oldest were at that rambunctious stage and couldn't be trusted to be quiet) filed out of the waiting room after her.  
With the news that Gerald was out of immediate danger, the mood in the room considerably lightened.  
"Yeesh," Harold complained. "What do they brew this coffee from?"  
"I'm pretty sure it's pee and cigarette butts," I speculated, "but it has caffeine and that's what matters."  
"Well, if you want something that's actually edible, Patty and I made some sandwiches for everyone."  
"Huh. Pastrami for breakfast. Gerald should get shot more often." Nervous laughter. The gang was used to my inappropriate sense of humor, if not entirely comfortable with it. "Don't tell Phoebe I said that. I am genuinely scared of her."  
"So, Stanley, darling," Rhonda interrupted, trying to change the subject, "I could not help but notice Rani's baby bump. It's about time the two of you finally got down to business."  
"Well, shucks," Stanley bashfully responded. "I reckon we're awful late to the party. All y'all's known the joys of parenthood long afore I have, on account o' our late start and all."  
"This isn't Stanley's first marriage" I whispered to Arnold. "Back when he was in law school and still going by Stinky, he had a brief-but-horrible marriage to Gloria."  
"Who's Gloria?" Arnold asked.  
"You don't want to know." Gloria was basically exactly what I thought Lila was. Sweet and innocent on the outside, poison on the inside. She'd briefly tried to get her hooks into Arnold during one of our "breaks" until I'd taken her aside and explained to her that, just because we weren't a couple didn't mean I would ever let him get hurt.  
Last I heard, she had moved to California in hopes of getting into acting. If her innocent act was anything to go by, she really had a shot at the big time.  
\--  
The "party" in the waiting room eventually began to clear out, until only Arnold, Rhonda and myself were left. By then, Phoebe returned from Gerald's room.  
"He's awake," she said. "And he wants to talk to you two."  
"I suppose that's my cue to leave as well, then," Rhonda said. "Four's a crowd."  
"Maybe you should come too," Phoebe said. "I have a feeling about things. And, uh… I know I've been kind of a pain to deal with, but… I'm really glad you all came." She impulsively hugged all three of us.  
We were led to one of the private rooms on the second floor. Gerald was sitting up in his bed, looking spent but alert.  
"Arnold, m'man…. How you holdin' up?" he said, holding out his hand for their signature handshake.  
"I think I'm the one who should be asking you that, considering who's the one in the bed."  
"Hey, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. But hey, if I'd known it'd get Rhonda to grace us with her lovely presence, I would've gotten myself shot a long time ago."  
"Careful, Gerald…" Rhonda replied flirtatiously. "We wouldn't want Phoebe to get the wrong idea." Her voice took on a mock serious tone. "Seriously. I want to live to see my wife and daughter again."  
"Pataki," he continued. "Before I conk out again, I gotta talk about something serious with you."  
"Yes?" I asked. "What?"  
"How was the Chez Paris reopening?"  
I glared. "Gerald, if you hadn't just almost died I'd finish the job myself. Don't you dare ever scare us like this again."  
"Sorry, Helga, you know I can't resist an opportunity to bust on you. But seriously," he said. "I'm pretty sure the guy who shot me was the same one who went after Arnold."  
"The Memory Master?" Rhonda asked.  
"That's just it… it couldn't have been." Gerald answered. "Just before I was attacked, I got a report from the FBI. The Memory Master, AKA John Krensky, AKA Blind Ivan, AKA, I swear to god I am not making this up, Toot-Toot McBumbersnazzle, was found in Tupelo, MS four days ago."  
"Is it possible that he managed to escape custody after being captured?" I asked.  
"Definitely not," Gerald responded. "Considering he was dead."  
"So we're dealing with a copycat here," Arnold picked up, clearly getting caught up in the investigation of his own attack.  
"That's right," Gerald said. "The ME's report said that Krensky was found in a Motel 9, his death was due to blunt force trauma to the back of the head. There was no sign of the memory eraser gun."  
"Then it looks like what happened was someone killed Krensky and stole his equipment, then adopted his identity to throw off anyone looking into his own. Someone who probably had an existing vendetta against you, Arnold," I concluded. "And Gerald as well, since it seems like he was specifically targeted."  
"He did seem to know me," Gerald admitted.  
"Wow, Helga… you're good at this," Arnold marveled.  
"Well, I do write this sorta stuff for a living. So… who do we know who'd bear a grudge against the two of you?"  
"How about Scheck?" he asked.  
I shook my head. "Scheck died in prison a couple of years ago. And he didn't have any living relatives who would bear a grudge. And LaSombra's son was still locked up in a San Lorenzo jail last I looked, though maybe someone should check up on that…"  
"I'll have the precinct look into it," Gerald agreed. "We should at least have one lead. I managed to get a shot off when our perp hit me, and I'm pretty sure I tagged his leg. Which means our boy leaked his DNA all over the office. The lab boys and girls are probably already hard at work on getting a name."  
"Finally, we're getting somewhere," I said. "I can't wait to put an end to this crap."  
"What do you mean 'you,' Helga?" Phoebe interjected.  
"…you saying what I think you're saying?"  
"Yes. The Memory Fakester made this personal. I think it's time Magnetica came out of retirement."  
"Yes!" cheered Rhonda. "Weird Sisters reunion! …don't get me wrong, this is a serious situation, but it's just been too long since the three of us were all together on a case!"  
"Hey, if you want in on this, we'd be happy to have you," I said, "but you don't have to stick around on my account. I know you have a life to get back to back East."  
"Nonsense. When else are we going to get this kind of opportunity? I just hope my folks didn't throw out the spare costume I keep stashed at their place. It would just not do if I was not suitably dressed."  
Heh… same old Rhonda.


	11. Wait, YOUR Mom's a Superhero Too?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trudy Shortman teaches Akiko Johanssen some family history.

Chapter 11  
Wait, YOUR Mom's a Superhero Too?  
Morning of the 15th, concurrent with the events of the previous chapter  
En route to the Johanssens  
-TRUDY-  
"Pataki-Shortman! Report!"  
Mom's voice came over the earpiece. I wasn't old enough to have a B-Watch yet, and had to make do with an old smartphone that was mainly for emergency calls. "I'm approaching my objective, commander. Target in range. I should be rendezvousing with my contact soon." This was our thing, this pseudo-military back-and forth, whenever she sent me on an "official mission". This kind of play-acting was apparently something my great-grandma, the original Gertrude Shortman, was really fond of.  
Sometimes, I kind of wish time travel was real. She sounds like she would've been really fun to meet.  
"Excellent. Mission Parameters?"  
"Keep Akiko Johanssen company. Help her in whatever way I can. Try to get her mind of what's happening to her dad." Last night, Akiko's father (and my own godfather), Detective Gerald Johanssen, had been shot last night, likely by the same guy who'd wiped my own dad's memory. She was currently being watched over by her grandparents, Kyo and Reba, while her mom was keeping vigil at the hospital.  
"Good work, Lieutenant. Commander out!"  
Riva met me at the Johanssen's doorstep (conveniently, their place was between my house and the hers). We did our secret handshake (double fist bump, cross wrists and double fist bump again, then blow it up; you tell anyone, and we will come for you).  
"Wingman reporting for duty," she said. "Ironic choice of words since you're the one with the wings, and neither of us is a man."  
"What are you talking about?"  
"You know…"  
"No. I don't."  
"You like her," she said, a smirk on her face.  
"Sure, I like her. Everyone likes her."  
"You loooooooooooooooooove her."  
"I don't love her."  
"Mmm-hmm." If anything, my denial made her look even more smug.  
"I don't!"  
"Sure, buddy."  
"I don't!"  
"Whatever you say."  
Hmmph. I love Riva, but she can be so annoying. Seriously? Akiko and me? We have nothing in common! Oh, sure, she and I would both participate in all the big group activities our grade got up to, but we didn't really hang one-one-one like I did with Riva. She was in with the popular crowd, and I tended to drift toward the misfits. The two of us simply tended to move in different circles.  
…and yet…  
…okay, so Akiko was easily the prettiest girl in class. She had flawless caramel-mocha skin, lustrous curly black hair, sparkling brown eyes, and the prefect blend of African and Asian features. Her smile could melt the coldest heart. I'm not made of stone. I have eyes.  
But if that was all she was, I would never had stayed interested. My parents have always pushed me to look past the surface of things. And when you looked past Akiko's surface, you found that the beauty really went far beyond skin deep. She was intelligent, kind, generous, thoughtful, caring… she always had a smile for everyone, regardless of social station, and never a harsh word.  
But would she ever see me as I saw her? I hold no illusions about myself. I know I'm not a particularly pretty girl. I probably never will be. My mom says I'll "grow into myself"; she claims she was straight-up ugly at my age, so I'm already ahead of her. But moms have to say that sort of thing. That's their job.  
So, I don't exactly have my foot in the door. And that doesn't even take into account the likelihood that Akiko just plain isn't into girls… my chances were probably somewhere between jack and squat. Jeez, did people actually once think you chose to be this way?  
We rang the doorbell. "I really don't, you know."  
"If you say so." The smugness was reaching peak levels.  
Akiko's grandma was the one who answered the door. "Why, if it ain't Trudy Shortman! As I live an' breathe, I ain't seen you since you were knee-high to a snappin' turtle. And is that Riva Berman?"  
"Hi, Mrs, Heyerdahl," Riva said politely.  
"Come in, come in! Kyo, sug', look who it is!"  
The two of us entered, removing our shoes. We greeted Mr. Heyerdahl, and endured their questions about literally everything before we were clear to move on.  
We found Akiko in the den, staring at the channel-select screen on the holovision, or rather, beyond it, at nothing.  
"Hey," I said.  
"Uh huh," she replied listlessly. Had she even registered our presence?  
This would not do. I snapped my fingers. "Akiko!"  
"Huh?" She seemed to snap out of her trance. She blinked a few times, processing where she was and who was with her. "Trudy? Riva"?  
"Welcome back to Earth," snarked Riva.  
"Shhh," I said, prodding her. Normally I loved Riva's dry sense of humor but this was clearly not the time for it. "You look like you could use some friends right now," I said.  
"Yeah… I probably could," she said coldly. "It'd be nice if one of them showed up. No offense… I'm glad you guys came, but we're not exactly close, are we?"  
"I guess not," I said.  
"Mara, Nikki, Lina, Yolanda, Claire…. Not one of them bothered to call me. Not even a text." She sighed deeply.  
"We did," I said hopefully.  
"Yeah," she said, smiling a bit. "You did." She exhaled. "Maybe I'm hanging with the wrong crowd."  
"Maybe," I agreed. "We do tend to have more fun. You ever been to a Pig War?"  
She raised a perfect eyebrow. "Can't say I have."  
"It's coming up next week. You really should join us. My grandpa Miles took us last year. Basically we dress all old-timey and chase a pig around Elk Island. It's a lot more fun than it sounds. Of course, last year we couldn't get a pig, so Kaiju played the part."  
"Getting your hands on a greased monitor lizard is not for the faint of heart," added Riva.  
"That does sound more fun than hanging out at the mall for the billionth time," agreed Akiko. "Maybe I will. I just have to ask d-" She stopped cold, starting to tear up, reminded once again of what had just happened to her father.  
"He'll be okay," I insisted. "Your mom's, like, the best doctor ever."  
"I know, I just… I don't know." She sniffled, reaching for tissues. "I think this might be my mom's fault somehow. And I hate myself for thinking that."  
"What… makes you think this is her fault?" I asked. How much did Akiko know? We never really talked about the past our moms shared. Mom had told me all about how Akiko's mother had once been her partner.  
"I… I'm not sure if I should tell you this, but… I feel like I can trust you for some reason. My mom… used to be Magnetica."  
I kept my face neutral. "She was?"  
"I know… Magnetica was an alien, and my mom's normal. Well, she's not entirely. Every few days, she has to revert back to her real form. It's a little weird, but.. I've kinda gotten used to it.  
"Your mom… she didn't tell you anything about her old team, did she?"  
"Not really. I think she's trying to keep me protected from that part of her life as long as she can."  
"What do you mean 'as long as she can?'"  
Akiko took a deep breath, as if wondering whether to continue with the next part. "A while back, mom told me that there was some kind of virus that's in my blood, and that, one day, it could change me into something like her. I, uh… I'm not sure I'm ready for that. I mean… she says that with a few special shots and some training, I'd be able to look like myself, but… what if I can't? What if I'm stuck that way?"  
I wondered if it was my own metamorphosis that had prompted Aunt Phoebe to tell Akiko about her possible genetic fate. As far as I know, I was the first it had happened to.  
My thoughts drifted back to the weeks I spent on Nana Miriam's ranch, adjusting, training, getting the treatments I needed to be able to reassume my human form. It hadn't been easy, but I'd come through it okay, and even learned to love the new me. Akiko would have to go through all of that.  
"It's going to be fine," I assured her.  
"Is it?" She asked. "My so-called friends can't even be bothered to call me when something bad happens. What happens when I'm an alien freak?"  
"Well, it turned out all right for me," I told her.  
She blinked, as she attempted to process this new information. "For… you."  
I held out my hand, smiling. "Hi. Trudy Pataki-Shortman. Alien freak."  
"Wait…" She put two and two together. "YOUR mom was a superhero too?"  
I nodded. "She still is, actually. My mom's Temper."  
"Pffft…" Akiko slapped her forehead. "Duh. Your mom's my mom's best friend, of course they were on the same team together." She glanced over at Riva. "So which one was your mom? Joule? Decibelle?"  
"Nope. Fully human over here, as far as I know."  
"So, anyway," I continued. "A couple of summers ago, we were visiting my grandma in South Dakota when all of a sudden I came down with a really high fever and severe pain. That was how it started."  
"….and this is supposed to make me feel less apprehensive about what could happen to me?"  
"Let me finish. So my folks rush my other grandma up to the ranch, the one who's a biology expert, 'cause she knows pretty much everything there is to know about the virus. She explained everything that was happening to me, clearly, concisely, in a way my seven-year-old brain could understand. And… well, I was scared still, but a lot less than I had been."  
"So, I was changing, but it was okay. I knew the people who loved me would still love me once it was over. And when it was over…. I was different. But I was still me. A stronger, faster me who could fly."  
"Hey," interrupted Riva. "I know what we can do to put her mind at ease. Let's give Akiko a taste of the kind of stuff she'll be able to do."  
I nodded. "C'mon. We're going to our super-secret training ground."  
\--  
Potts Brothers Salvage Yard  
Just a quick subway trip outside of town  
"You took me… to a junkyard." Akiko shot a skeptical look at me.  
"This was why I told you to change into old clothes you don't care about," Riva informed.  
"Anyway…" I continued. "Old Man Potts is an old friend of my parents. He and his brother own this place, and they've been letting me train here."  
"That's right," The old man in question opened the gate for us. "Name's Ernie. Me an' the super-squirt's folks go waaaaaaay back." He squinted. "You look kinda familiar, kid…. Do I know you?"  
"This is Akiko Johanssen. She's a friend of mine from school."  
The small man slapped his knee. "That's it! You're Gerald and Phoebe's kid, aren't ya! Y'know, your mom used to work for me during the summer."  
"My mom… the neurosurgeon… worked for you?" Akiko questioned.  
"Sure did. The little lady was really into demolition. I'm actually kinda surprised she ditched it for medicine. She had a real knack for smashin' stuff. It's a cryin' shame… though, I guess, she's probably saved a lot of lives or whatever. Anyhow, mi garbage es su garbage, so g'wan, knock yerselves out. But… uh, don't actually knock yerselves out. I can't afford the insurance premiums."  
As we entered, Akiko commented "I'm…. a bit less convinced this is a good idea."  
"It's fine," Riva said. "I only got that one concussion, and you can barely tell my left leg's fake. And I only got that one concussion."  
"What?!" Akiko nervously reacted.  
"She's messing with you," I said. "That's her deal."  
"Oh, you know you love when I do it," she said.  
"That's certainly one opinion."  
"And I'm sticking to it."  
"My friends don't do this," Akiko said, a bit wistfully. "Casually rib each other like this. When they insult someone, it's nasty. You can really tell they mean it."  
Maybe you need better friends, I thought, not for the first time that morning. Seems like you don't fit with them as well as you think.  
"Okay… I need to go change," I said. "It's a bit gross, so I'll go duck behind that container over there…"  
"Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing it," Akiko said.  
"Trust me, if you're at all familiar with the works of Cronenberg, you already know what's going to happen."  
"I have no idea who that is. All I know is, this could be me someday, so I might as well know what I'm gonna look like."  
"Well… if you're sure…" I opened the access flaps on my clothes, closed my eyes, and let go.  
When I opened them once again, Akiko was rapt. "That… was… awesome."  
I felt my cheeks go maroon. "R-really?"  
"It's like… you were some kind of human flower, and you were opening up to the sun. It was kind of beautiful."  
"I… can't say I've heard anyone describe it like that," I said. She was literally waxing poetic at my flesh rearranging itself. She thought it was beautiful. She thought… I was beautiful. In a way.  
"…right," I continued, composing myself. "Here's me, lifting a car."  
And so, I went through a demonstration of each of my powers. Lifting heavy stuff, bending metal bars, flying, taking a blow from a crowbar (It hurt a little, but not nearly as much as it would a regular person), and finally, my own unique power.  
"I first learned how to do this a couple of months ago." I said, growing the ball of light between my lower pair of hands. "At first, it was a tiny thing, but I learned how to make it bigger. And then I learned how to make it move."  
"That's so cool," Akiko whispered.  
"I guess. I can't melt steel like my mom or shatter every window on a city block like Decibelle. I am working on changing the color of the ball, though. That's something."  
"No, it really is cool. It's like you're holding a star right in your hands."  
"Speaking of… you should close your eyes, right now."  
"Why?" she said, complying.  
"This." The ball exploded in a brilliant flash of light. "Once the ball reaches maximum size, I can hold it together for about thirty seconds. Then it detonates. It can really mess up your vision for a while.  
"As I found out," Riva interjected. "I was blind for half a day."  
"You were not," I commented. "She was actually blind for about half an hour. The rest, she was just screwing with me. For some reason, my folks found the whole situation really funny." I shrugged. "Grownups. Who can understand 'em?"  
Akiko snickered. "I know right? This one time-" Her prospective anecdote was interrupted by her phone's ringtone. "Hold on one second." She answered. "Hello? Mom? What's… oh, thank god. Hmm? Yeah, they're with me. We're um… at the park. Okay, thanks, I'll tell them. I love you too. Bye." She clicked the phone off. "Dad's out of surgery. He's going to be okay."  
We let out breaths we weren't aware we'd been holding as she'd been speaking, and immediately enveloped her in a hug. "Thanks," she said. "I… I think I need to start hanging out with you guys more often."  
"You were always welcome," I said.  
"Yeah, I think I get that now," she said. "It's nice to know that, whatever happens to me, I'll be okay."  
Our moment was interrupted by the sound of a text. "Welp, that's my exit cue," Riva said. "The 'rents want me home for dinner."  
"But it's only three," I protested. She simply mimed a pair of wings with her hands, and darted off.  
Duh. Wingman.  
\--  
One reversion to my human form and a train ride later, we were back in front of her house.  
"So, uh… I guess we should also be going," I said.  
"I mean… you don't have to go home right away," she replied. "We could hang out a bit longer here. Looks like oji and obaasan have left, and I kinda don't wanna be by myself."  
I smiled. "That sounds nice."  
"Yeah… it's probably gonna be a while before Mom's home. She said she was going to be bringing your parents and this old friend of theirs…. Rhoda or something."  
"Do you mean Rhonda? You know she's Joule, right?"  
"…seriously? Is every woman my mom knows a superhero?"  
"I think it's just most of them."  
"Well… I think it's pretty cool that I'm friends with one."  
She impulsively hugged me, and was it my imagination, or was it just a little longer than it needed to be?  
"Anyway, you coming?" she asked.  
"Sure!" I said, just a bit too quickly and enthusiastically.  
Probably my imagination. Yeah.


	12. The Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Weird Sisters old and new come together.

Chapter 12

The Reunion

Heyerdahl-Johanssen residence

-ARNOLD-

Gerald and Phoebe's home wasn't quite as big as Helga's (ours, I reminded myself), but it felt more open. Phoebe's Eastern design sensibilities informed much of the décor, though you could see a definite Gerald-like touch here and there (the giant autographed poster of LeBron James, for example; Gerald had been really excited when he'd managed to get that).

"I keep forgetting how much space you guys have here," Rhonda marveled, somewhere behind us. We'd picked her up after she dropped off her things and picked up her spare costume at her parents' house. She and Helga had spent the entire trip over reminiscing about their high school and college days, while I sat there with no frame of reference. "Back in New York, you pay three times as much for half of this."

"You could always move back here," Helga suggested. "Not that everybody misses the hell out of you or anything like that…"

"Clearly not," Rhonda replied, arching an eyebrow. "It's tempting, but… our entire life is there. Both our jobs, Courtney's friends… we just got a puppy…"

"Yeah, but… we barely see you two anymore. It's like the gang's incomplete."

"We're hardly the only ones who moved out of town. What makes us so special?"

"Well… you remember how it was, right? Me and Arnold, Phoebe and Gerald, you and Nadine… we were the three 'It' couples. We did practically everything together. Remember that stunt we pulled at the Cheese Festival back in '21?"

"It was a miracle we never got arrested for that," Rhonda said, chuckling. "You always were a terrible influence on me."

"Ah, you loved it. Without me, you probably would've never done anything fun. Remember roller derby, sophomore year at Columbia?" Helga asked, prodding her.

"I'd like to think I brought a bit of class to the proceedings," Rhonda replied with a mock-haughty hair flip.

"What was your derby name again?"

"Georgia O'Queefe," she responded without missing a beat. The two dissolved into laughter. I didn't get it.

It was another reminder of just how much things could change in twenty-five years. Back then, Helga and Rhonda barely tolerated each other. The two were both too different and too similar (in all the worst ways) to really get along. Yet here the two were joking around like old friends. Which, of course, they were at this point; I just hadn't been there to witness it. Well, I had, but I didn't remember it. This whole amnesia deal was very confusing.

"See, in roller derby, it's traditional to give yourself a gross or violent nickname," Helga said, noticing I was totally lost. "Mine was… Oh, hey! Pheebs is ready!"

She was indeed. She had fully changed into a light-blue-skinned version of Helga's species, with a blue-and-silver uniform. Up until this point, I had never, ever thought of Phoebe as intimidating, with her tiny build, shy demeanor, and squeaky voice, but right now, I could definitely see it.

Of course, the illusion was shattered the moment she opened her mouth.

"You two haven't suited up yet? This is a strategy meeting, not a dinner party!"

"Doesn't mean you couldn't have put out some wine and cheese," Rhonda quipped.

"This is serious!" Phoebe declared. "We must find a way to locate Gerald's assailant and prevent any further attacks from occurring! If you cannot take this seriously, Rhonda, perhaps we would be better off without you."

"Hey, c'mon. She's just trying to lighten the mood…" Helga intervened.

"You're taking her side?"

"I'm not taking anyone's side! There are no sides! Look… I get you're frustrated. If Arnold was attacked… oh wait. He was attacked!"

"Oh… I didn't mean-"

"No, you didn't. I know that bastard tried to take Gerald's life, but he failed. In my case, he succeeded."

Phoebe's anger began to flare up again. "How could you possibly compare-"

"Sure, Maybe he's not lying in a hospital bed, maybe he's up and around and active… but he's not whole. That bastard took something irreplaceable from us… he took our life together. Everything we had, everything we built over the years… he doesn't remember any of it. He took Arnold's love, for me, for our children… and that's unforgivable."

Helga was starting to tear up now. I wanted to go to her, to hold her, to tell her everything was all right. But it wasn't. I truly had lost something irreplaceable.

And yet… I realized that she had been wrong about one thing.

Our mystery foe had indeed taken every memory I'd had of our lives together. All the joy, all the sorrow, all the triumphs and tragedies we'd shared over two and a half decades.

But he most certainly had failed to take my love. For I knew, now, that I did love Helga Pataki. Whether scrappy nine-year-old tomboy, confident mother/author/politician, half-alien warrior angel… I truly did love her. I loved my daughter. I loved my son. I… could take or leave the lizard. But the rest… I barely knew them, but the one thing I was sure of was that the love I felt was real.

"So I'm just as angry as you are. But I am NOT going to take that anger out on the people who care about me, and you shouldn't either. Okay?"

"I-I'm sorry… it's just…" Phoebe's fury dissipated, and she took her visor off to wipe her teary eyes. "I could have lost him. I was so close to losing him. And I couldn't do anything."

"Oh, Pheebs…" Helga embraced her friend warmly. "He's okay now. Everything's fine. We're all here, we're all together, and we're going to fix this."

"Th-thank you," Phoebe said, composing herself. "I… I am sorry I let my emotions get the better of me."

"No," Rhonda admitted. "I really shouldn't have been so flippant about the situation. You had every right to lose your patience with me. I'm… not good in sensitive situations."

"Neither am I," Helga replied. "But you're trying. Now get over here, you're missing out on the hug action."

"Well, far be it from me to refuse an invitation." She joined the other two in their embrace as Phoebe opened her left pair of arms to accommodate her. "You have no idea how much I missed this."

I sat there, once again a spectator, left out of the moment because I simply didn't remember. I not only had no recollection of my marriage, but of my friends beyond the fourth grade. I hadn't gotten to see them grow and become what they were today and yes, that was an unforgivable thing.

One thing I knew; I was tired of sitting and watching my own life.

"Hey," I said, interrupting.

"Oh… Arnold!" Helga's head snapped around to me. "Sorry, it's just… you know… an emotional moment."

"Maybe he's feeling left out," Rhonda said. "Three beautiful women hugging it out… who wouldn't want to be in the middle of that?"

I blushed, as, subconsciously, the thought had occurred. I was only human, after all. "I just don't want to get left out… of the planning, not the hug. I was one of the victims. It's only right that I should have a say."

"Arnold, you've already been attacked once," Helga said. "I don't want you in the line of fire…"

"I'm in the line of fire no matter what!" I said. "What're you gonna do, just lock me away in a vault somewhere?"

"If I have to…"

"Helga. I'm not helpless. Maybe I can't lift a bus or shrug off a bullet, but I have something to contribute, okay?"

"Arnold… we almost lost Gerald."

"But we didn't. And we're not gonna lose me. I promise."

Helga smiled weakly. "Always gotta look on the bright side, don't ya, Football Head."

"Somebody has to," I replied.  
\--  
-AKIKO-

"And what are they doing now?"

Trudy's ear twitched. "Okay, so your mom just walked into the room, and she wants to know why the other two haven't changed yet. And Rhonda made some sarcastic comment, and your mom got mad at her, and mine is defending her, and it's all a big stupid argument…"

She was crouched on her lower hands and knees, ear to the ground, listening in on the conversation downstairs. Her tail was swishing back and forth in the air behind her, that puff of golden fluff on the end waving hypnotically. I resisted the urge to reach out and touch it. She probably wouldn't like that.

"I mean," she continued, "they're all supposed to be on the same side, right? What's the point in fighting each other over some stupid joke?"

"Mmm-hmm." Swish swish. "I bet they all hug it out within the next couple of minutes."

"Yeah, you're probably right," she agreed. Swish swish. Ugh, why was I so focused on her tail? I barely even really thought about Trudy Shortman until she'd suddenly dropped back into my life this morning. I vaguely remembered being friends when we were little kids, a natural side-effect of our moms and dads being so close (the Pataki-Shortmans were my godparents, and vice-versa), but we'd been drifting apart all throughout grade school, her with her friends, me drifting toward the popular crowd due to shared interests. I mean, I was a fairly girly kind of girl. I like fashion, makeup, that sort of thing, and Trudy clearly… didn't.

And yet… I had had more fun today, with Trudy and Riva, than I can remember having with my usual circle of friends in over a year. At a dump, of all places. I was actually seriously considering spending my next Saturday chasing a pig around the woods. What was wrong with me?

Or was something becoming right with me?

I'm not sure what it is, but something felt… right about hanging out with Trudy. And no, not in the "our parents are best friends" sense. I felt good hanging out with her because of her, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

"Well, when you're right, you're right. I mean, I can't actually see them hugging it out, but they're talking about it. And now my dad's complaining about being left out, and mom's being Overprotective Mama Bear…"

Swish swish.

"And now they're being adorable, and now your mom just said that if I can hear them it means they can hear us and stop eavesdropping."

"Ohhhh."

"Yep. 'Fraid we're busted."

"You think they'll buy it if we pretend we're working on a Social Studies project?"

"No, we won't," answered Trudy's mom, good-naturedly. She was climbing the stairs, carry-on bag in hand, followed by that other friend of my mom's, the one from the east coast who ran some huge company or something.

"Oh, just look at you two!" the latter gushed. "You've gotten so big, Akiko! And Trudy… oh, Trudy, you are just going to be something spectacular."

Her cheeks went maroon. "I… kinda have a long way to go," she said.

"Nonsense," she said. "I bet you're going to surpass us by far. You too, when you finally bloom," she said, addressing me.

Maybe that's what it was… Trudy was living proof that the metamorphosis I was destined to go through was nothing to fear. She had experienced it and not only survived, but thrived. I was drawn to her because of that positivity, and the positivity she was instilling in me. Because of the optimistic future I could see in those luminous green eyes. Surely that was it.

Then again, perhaps tomorrow I would go back to my old group of friends and forget all about today. Old habits were hard to break, and old ruts were easy to fall into. But I hoped, I really hoped, I wouldn't.

"You know… if you really want to listen in…" Trudy's mom said, "you could have just asked."

Trudy perked up. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. As our daughters, the two of you are a part of this, and you're old enough and mature enough to appreciate the dangers involved."

"I'm not sure my mom would agree with that," I replied. "She never even told me who you really were. I had to find out about it from Trudy."

"…I thought she knew, honestly," Trudy protested, waving her upper hands defensively.

"Mmmm," Ms. Pataki mused, "I suppose I can let it slide. Just as long as it doesn't go too far…"

"…okay, full disclosure, Riva also knows. She's seen me transform and she put two and two together. And then she figured out all the identities of the other Weird Sisters by extension."

"Well, let's hope she doesn't decide to become a supervillain."

"Ugh, remember when Thad tried to become my Catwoman?" Ms…. Lloyd, I think her name was, interjected. "Like, every time Nadine and I had a public fight, he'd adopt some ridiculous persona and pull some crazy stunt in an effort to draw my attention. It really got annoying,"

"Stalkers are the worst." Ms. Pataki agreed. "And yes, I am aware of the irony. Anyway, girls, we're going to get changed, and then you two can come down and join us. For tonight only, you are unofficial Weird Sisters."  
\--  
-ARNOLD-

"Helga, what are they doing here?" asked Phoebe. "They're far too young to be part of this conversation!"

Helga and Rhonda had joined us, fully shifted to their alien forms and in their respective costumes (Rhonda's was scarlet and navy with lightning-bolt trim, bright in contrast to her more subdued mauve skin). They'd brought Trudy and Akiko down with them. This was my first time seeing Gerald and Phoebe's daughter in person. I could see both her parents in her… I could feel both Gerald's loyalty and Phoebe's intelligence in her gaze.

"I disagree," Helga said. "Akiko will be one of us soon enough, and Trudy already is. I know for a fact that she's been training in what she thinks is secret."

"She has?" I said, taken aback.

Trudy looked at her mother in shock. "How did you.."

"Oh, please, dear… do you think Mr. Potts would just let you hang out in a junkyard without letting us know about it? I've been making sure he keeps an eye on you the whole time."

"I trusted him!" fumed Trudy.

"And that was your first mistake," Helga smirked. "Your second was thinking that I don't want you learning to use your powers properly. They're a part of you, and you need to get comfortable with them. I just don't want you trying to go into action before you're ready. But you can sit in on this. You'll learn something."

"That's all well and good for Trudy," Phoebe contended, "but Akiko has no powers or training yet. She shouldn't be here."

"Mother," Akiko said, "I know you're trying to protect me from this whole life, but you can't do that forever. My blood's a time bomb, and it's going to go off at any moment. I should know what I'm getting into, shouldn't I?"

"I just want you safe, Aki-chan…" Phoebe protested. She glanced to Rhonda for backup.

"Well, don't look at me," she said. "I was very straightforward with Courtney. In unecessarily graphic detail, some might say."

"But-" Her gaze turned to me, like I was her last hope. Honestly, I was a bit torn. On the one hand, they were young, and this was dangerous.

But on the other…

"Phoebe, do you even remember some of the things we did at their age? We were exploring caves under Elk Island, breaking into tombs, defying bulldozers, and steering runaway buses down a freeway to thwart a criminal land baron. Kids are tougher and more resourceful than you give them credit for. We know because we were those tough, resourceful kids."

She looked like she was about to say something, but paused to reconsider her thoughts. "We were like that, weren't we. It's been so long since I was a kid, I forgot." She smiled. "Okay, Aki-chan. I suppose I can step back a bit."

"Thanks, mom," she said.

Phoebe composed herself. "All right, let's go over the facts." Phoebe opened a holoscreen, which had a slideshow running. "Arnold was attacked at the museum on Friday, by an assailant masquerading as a known criminal, the Memory Master, having, it seems, previously murdered the rightful owner of the mantle and stolen his equipment. The assailant stole the last twenty-five years of his memory."

She changed slides. "The same assailant attempted an unsuccessful assassination on my own husband, Gerald, last night at the Hillwood PD. He was wounded in the attempt. The forensics department is currently working to identify the assailant from the DNA he left behind. Unfortunately, the trail stops not far from the station, so there's no way to find out where he went from there."

"When did you have time to make this slideshow?" Rhonda asked. "We didn't take that long to change outfits."

"I still had had my old Mission Briefing template from our Weird Sisters days, so it was really just a simple matter to plug in the appropriate words and images. Anyway. Suspects. The most likely one was Gregorio Valdez, the son of La Sombra, but I just checked with the San Lorenzo authorities, and he's still safely incarcerated."

"Could it be any of our other past enemies?" Helga asked.

"I had considered that, but most of them are far too egotistical to take up the mantle of a competitor. They would prefer to score victories as themselves. Of course, I would be nothing if not thorough, so I did do a check on our most persistent adversaries, and all came up in custody. So, while we have no leads as to our nemesis's identity, we can be confident that he is not one of them."

"Or she," Akiko suddenly added.

"Hmm?"

"You keep saying 'he' when you talk about this guy. What if it's 'she'?"

Helga raised her eyebrow. "Gerald did say his attacker was using a voice-changer…"

Phoebe suddenly slapped her forehead. "Of course! How could I have been so myopic? How could it have not occurred to me that our quarry could be female?"

"Easy," I said. "It's an easy mistake to make."

"Not for me! How could I have been responsible for such a gross oversight? Surely, a member of an all-female supergroup should know better than to dismiss an entire gender!"

"It's fine," Rhonda said. "We're all rusty, Helga excepted… you haven't put on the costume in a decade, and I'm just a glorified first responder these days. All I investigate anymore is online bargains."

Seeking to move past this, Helga took charge. "Okay, so… we need to investigate if any of our old enemies have any family that could be looking for revenge. Expand the search to sisters, wives, girlfriends."

"…r-right," Phoebe said, composing herself. "We hit the streets and skies, check our usual sources, find any leads we can. Meet up back here tomorrow."

Their course determined, Helga approached Akiko and Trudy. "Looks like I made the right call having you girls sit in. Without you breaking us out of our thinking patterns, we would probably still be stuck.

Akiko blushed. "It… just seemed kind of obvious is all."

"Sometimes we miss even the most obvious things because we're too stuck in our heads." She turned to Trudy. "Tru, you're going to have the most important job."

"What's that?" our daughter asked.

"This guy – or gal – has daddy's memories, so he knows who I am. He or she is bent on revenge, and I'm fairly sure they're not above doing after family to get back at us. That means you, your brother, your grandparents, your aunt and uncle, your cousins… all of you are targets. You need to watch over them, keep them safe, protect them. You have my full permission to use whatever power you have to do it."

Trudy looked nervous, the full weight of the responsibility bearing down upon her. "I'll try, mom."

"No," I said. "You're going to succeed. I know I can't really claim to know you anymore, but from everything I've seen, I can confidently say that I'm proud to be your father."

"Thank you, daddy," she said, hugging me a little too tightly.

"Easy, Starglow," I said. "Unlike you, I don't have unbreakable ribs."

"Oh sor- wait, what'd you call me?"

"Starglow," I repeated. Wait… where had that name come from?

"That's what you always call me… but how do you even remember it?"

"I don't know…" I said. It had just… popped into my head.

"It appears that the memory erasure wasn't quite as complete as we'd assumed. Traces were left." Phoebe surmised.

"Then… it's possible I could get my memory back on my own?" I asked.

"There is precedent, notably the case of Stanley Pines…." Phoebe replied. "It could be a lengthy process, but… there is a chance."

"I'll take it," I said. "After all… I wouldn't be me if I gave up hope, would I?'

"No… and that's a sign that, memory or not, you're the Arnold I love." Helga joined in on the hug and I was wrapped in the loving embrace of their eight collective arms.

And for that moment, everything was right in the world.


	13. Just Like Riding a Bike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the girls do legwork, or is it wingwork?

A.N.: Playing with the perspective a bit this chapter. It'll mostly be in the 3rd person because I think the scenes work better that way.

Chapter 13

Just Like Riding a Bike

Late Night of the 15t / Early Morning of the 16th

Outside the Broken Neck, a dive bar on the south side

The bouncer, a burly man in his early 40s, ex-Navy (due to a dishonorable discharge for certain indscrations), with a shaved head and multiple tattoos, stood outside the establishment, a necessary first line of defense to make certain only those of sufficient (i.e. low) character gained entrance.

It had been some time since anyone had approached, and he was beginning to nod off, but was roused by the tap of booted feet.

"Welcome to the Broken Neck, how tough are y-" he started, trailing off when he saw just who it was that was attempting to gain entrance.

"I think we can dispense with the formalities, can't we?" the newcomer said, lips curling away, revealing her fangs.

"Uh… s-sure," he said, stepping aside. Tough he was, no question… but not tough enough. Not to deal with that.

[A. N. Why, yes, this guy is based on a certain character from a certain classic Spongebob episode.]  
\--  
Inside, the Broken Neck was exactly like how you would imagine it. Filthy, loud, full of roughnecks one wrong word away from turning the place into a murder scene.

So you can imagine the scene when every light, every TV, every phone… every single device that ran on electricity, in fact… suddenly shut down. And the hush when the double doors blew open, revealing a most unusual woman. A beautiful one, to be sure, but beautiful women were hardly rare in Hillwood. Six-foot-five, mauve-skinned, winged, tailed, four-armed women, clad in skin-tight uniforms with lightning trim that glowed in the darkness of the pitch-black bar, were not.

"Hello, boys," she spoke, in a tone equal parts flirty and intimidating.

Rhonda Robinson-Lloyd possessed many skills, but one she had learned very early on was how to make an entrance. Her only regret was that life didn't come with a soundtrack. Something with heavy percussion and an intermittent grinding guitar rift, perhaps. It would've made this scene just that much cooler.

"Thought you moved to New York," the bartender commented.

"Can't a girl drop in on her old hometown?" she asked.

"I'm tryin' ta run a respectable establishment here," he said, "so if you can get whatever business you have done and get my power back on, I'd be most appreciative."

"Believe me, I intend to spend as little time in this dump as possible. I'm looking for information regarding the recent attacks at the museum and the police station. So if one of you, I use the term loosely, gentlemen would oblige me, I can be on my way and out of your hair."

"Oh, yeah," a particularly sleazy-looking individual at the end of the bar suggested. "I got some information for ya."

"Really," Rhonda asked skeptically.

"Yeah, but I'm gonna need somethin' from you." He said. "A little… tail, if ya get my meaning."

"What do you…" she said in feigned confusion, then suddenly smiled. "Oh! Because I have a tail and you want – yes! Oh, isn't that clever!" Her expression went serious. "Yeah, here's my counter offer."

She flung a tiny stream of electricity at the offending patron, just enough to stun him without doing any lasting damage. "FYI… when I do that to someone, they tend to lose control of their bladders and sphincters."

Those closest to the particular customer immediately smelled the results of that particular side effect. "A,h, jeez, Ox!" one complained. Rhonda grinned. It was never not funny.

"So, unless the rest of you invested in adult diapers recently, I think it would be in your best interests to cooperate." Rhonda knew her stunt would yield results. These types bragged about how they didn't fear pain or injury. Humiliation… that was another story entirely.  
\--  
Five minutes later, Rhonda had a lead. "Phoebe," she said into the communicator built into her visor. Praise be to Bridget, the woman thought of everything.

"I take it your fishing expedition was successful?"

"I have a name. Not much else, but it's something. Also, I made a guy crap himself, which is, of course, its own reward."

Phoebe giggled. "Rhonda, you're terrible."

"What can I say, something about this suit brings out my naughty side. Not that Nadine's complaining… Anyway… Guy's an expert in acquiring certain hard-to-get items. He tends to do business in the alley behind the old fish warehouse down near the docks. That's close to where you are, so if you could oblige."

"Roger, Rhon… acquiring target now. Wish me luck."

"Luck has nothing to do with it. It's just like riding a bike. It'll all come back to you."  
\--  
The aforementioned alley

The individual in question, a short, thin, ratlike man with a very distinctive W-shaped monobrow that ran in the family, was at that moment finding cause to regret the line of work he'd chosen.

"Now, gentlemen…" he said, nervously, eyeing the large, sharp knives the two wielded, "I'm certain we can come to an understanding here. If you could just calmly express your grievances, I'm sure we can negotiate an outcome that is beneficial to both our parties."

"Express our grievances," one of the men, a very large Asian with a scar on his left cheek and a missing pinky finger that suggested Yakuza ties. "Yes, I believe we can do that. How about we start with your violation of the understanding we had already come to. The one that is the very basis of our economic system… the exchange of money for the promised goods and/or services."

"Ah, yes… I believe that was done…"

"Not exactly. You see…. When one exchanges money for goods, one expects to receive the goods one was promised."

On cue, his associate, an even larger man with dreadlocks and a goatee, slammed an enormous plastic bag full of white powder on the crate in front of the weedy individual.

"Mr. Kimura, if you can just calm down…" he protested.

"Now, if I had wished to obtain sixty kilograms of baking powder," Kimura continued, ignoring his attempted interruption, "I could have simply purchased it, fairly and legally, at PriceCo. Their rates are quite competitive, you know. The annual membership fee practically pays for itself. However, baking powder was not what I purchased, was it, now, Mr. Wachowski."

Mick Wachowski gulped. "Look, I fully intended to deliver the goods, honest, I just… ran into some supply issues. If you'd simply be patient, I'm sure…."

"I'm afraid my patience is limited. However, I am feeling generous."

"Oh, thank you. You will not regr-"

"Malachi," he addresses his Rastafarian companion. "Do not cut off his manhood. His hand shall be quite sufficient."

"Nothin' personal, you understan'," Malachi said, unsheathing his very large knife. "Personally I find you quite charming."

"You know, I can actually use the baking powder," Kimura said, nonchalantly turning aside. "Baking happens to be one of my hobbies. In fact… just to show there are no hard feelings, I believe I'll send you a batch of my special salted-caramel brownies after you recover."

"That's… eh… very generous of you, Mr. Kimura, sir," Mick said, slowly backing away. He knew there was nowhere he could run, but maybe there was still a chance he could talk his way out.

He was still attempting to suss out his gameplan when he felt something long and flexible wrap itself around his midsection and yank him upward.

"What in Babylon-" began Malachi as his head snapped up to follow Mick's motion, only to trail off as he spotted just who had snared his target. Like most criminals in this town, he knew; if it had wings, stay away.

"Boss…" he said.

"Indeed. Perhaps it is best we table this discussion for a later date. Send Mr. Wachowski my regrets. Oh, and bring the baking powder."  
\--  
Phoebe smiled as she reeled in her catch. The retractable steel-foil strips built into her costume's gauntlets had done their job brilliantly. Bridget had loaded their costumes with all sorts of useful little gimmicks like this one, designed to complement and enhance their natural abilities.

"Mick Wachowski. AKA Mickey the Weasel."

"Magnetica," he replied, attempting to ingratiate himself with his captor/rescuer. "I had no idea you had come out of retirement. Might I say, the law enforcement community lost a very attractive member the day you hung up your tights."

Phoebe would have none of it. "Flattery will get you a one-way ticket to the dentist, Wachowski. The only thing I require of you is information."

"Well… seeing as I owe my continued health and possession of both my hands to your timely intervention, it would be most rude of me to refuse cooperation, wouldn't it." He squinted. "You know… there's actually something really familiar about you…"

"I have that kind of face," Phoebe smoothly replied. While the two of them had gone to PS118 together, they had been in different grades and had not had much in the way of interaction, and Wachowski had graduated by the time her mutation had kicked in. Only those in the 2017 sixth grade class and a few trusted others like Patty and Torvald were aware of the Weird Sisters' secret identities.

"My mistake, then. Now, what is it you require of me?"

"I am told that you recently had dealings with an individual claiming to be the Memory Master."

"Ah, yes… I believe I can help you with that. The said individual in question came to request my services Saturday morning. He wished to acquire a certain hard-to-obtain substance."

Phoebe could feel her apprehension beginning to mount. "What substance?" she asked, maintaining the poker face that had her banned in Vegas.

"A rather unique mineral. Its street name is, I believe, Unacquirium."

Her fears had been confirmed. Unacquirium, named by Helga for the MacGuffin substance in the film "Proxy", was an extremely rare substance indeed. It occurred in only one form, the crystals lining a series of geodes found in remote locations. The geodes were actually meteorites that had fallen to Earth thousands of years ago, originating from an unknown location beyond the solar system. The geodes had contained one other thing…. Extraterrestrial spores produced by a species of dragonlike creatures known as the Ka'Thaari. It had been those spores that had turned Phoebe and her friends into what they were today. In an odd twist, the crystals lining the geodes had proven to be toxic to the newly-created species.

"Let me guess," she asked, trying to keep the hopefulness out of her voice. "You took the buyer's money and passed off some cheap amethysts you bought at Kacjynszki's Natural Wonders as the real deal."

"Oh, no. I sold that guy the real deal." Mick said proudly. "You do not double-cross supervillains. Tommy Too-Small tried to double-cross Professor Miniscule, and, well, he wasn't called Tommy Too-Small until afterwards, if you get my meaning."

"Unfortunately, I do," replied Phoebe, rolling her eyes behind her visor. "What else can you tell me?"

"Not much. The guy wore a robe, gloves, and a hood the whole time, an' he was usin' one o' them voice-changers, so there was no way to tell who he was. An' the money came from a numbered, off-shore account in the Caymans. Untraceable."

"I see." This was not good. Not good at all. "Well, thank you for your cooperation. Now, there is the matter of being caught in the middle of a narcotics transaction…"

"Whoa, now, hold on! I helped you out! There's no reason we can't look the other way, is there?"

"True, I suppose. I'll just drop you off at Mr. Kimura's, then?"

"…on second thought, perhaps it is time I reconsidered my profession."

"Very well. If you will accompany me to the local precinct, then…"

As the blue-skinned woman carried him off, Mick resolved that he would seriously reconsider his uncle Walter's offer to work at his watch factory. It paid less, but it was good, honest work… mostly. Above all, though… it was safe.  
\--  
Back at the precinct where Gerald worked, Arnold was seated at his vacant desk, while Helga, in her Temper guise, stood off to the side, leaning against the wall. The two were waiting for Officer Doone to return with the DNA results.

"I don't see why we have to stay here," he protested. "I don't like hiding."

"Tough," Helga said, lower fists on her hips and upper arms crossed over her chest. "This place is safe and you're staying here. And I'm keeping every eye I have on you the entire time."

"I'm a grown man," he insisted, scowling. "Physically, anyway. I can take care of myself. Anyway, isn't Campfire Lass gonna get suspicious?"

"I'm a superheroine protecting a potential victim of a supervillain. There's nothing suspicious about it. It's not like we're gonna start ripping off our clothes and making out behind Gerald's desk or anything." Great, she thought. Now that I've brought it up, that's all I wanna do. The blush on Arnold's cheeks suggested that the possibility was now occurring to him, as well, and was not a completely unwelcome possibility.

They stood there awkwardly for a few moments, the tension hanging in the air. What would it be like, he wondered. Had they ever? Of course they had, there were two children that existed as proof of it. But… had they ever while she was in this form? Was it the same, or somehow different? Or was it something that couldn't be done, due to the vast difference in strength between the two?

His pondering was interrupted by the return of Officer Doone, holding what he hoped were the results.

"Well?" asked Helga.

"First, for th'record, let me state theht I am still uncomfortable with working with a knoown vigilante."

"Well, for the record, let me state that I was fully deputized by Mayor Winifred Dixie, twenty-three-years ago, as an adjunct to the department, and that relationship has been continued under Mayor Martin Green, so for the record, your objection means squat. Now, continue."

"Ahem… very well then." She scanned the results. "I regret teh say that the results of the DNA test are inconclusive. They match noo knoown criminal in oor database. The only thing we could determine is that the suspect is female."

Helga grinned. "Well, whaddaya know. Score one for Akiko."

Doone sideyed Helga suspiciously. "How d'ye knoow the detective's daughter?"

"Oh, you know him," Helga replied, expression giving away nothing. "Guy won't stop going on about her. He's so proud of her. I totally understand, y'know… I'm actually a mom myself."

"Ye are?" Doone asked, surprised. She'd never thought of the alien vigilante as, well… a person.

"Uh huh. I have a daughter and son. That's why I still do this, y'know. I want to make this world safe for them."

"Aye, well… I suppoose I can understand theht." She glanced from Helga, to Arnold. A connection began to form in her mind. "This isnae just a bodyguarding job for you, is it."

The look on Helga's face told her everything.

"D'ye know why I joined th'force?" Doone asked. "I ran with a pretty bad croowd in high school. Petty theft, vandalism, drug dealing, the whole bloody works. I was on a bad rood that was gonna lead me to ruin. And then I saw me boyfriend die in froont of me froom a heroin ooverdoose and I knew it joost as easily could hehve been me. I knew I needed to clean meself up. Geht on th'right track. Moostly… I knew I wanted to do whatever I could to make sure that noo oone ever went through what I did. That's what you want too, isn't it. You just want to protect people."

Quietly, Helga took off her visor, fully revealing her face.

"My name's Helga," she said. "Helga Pataki."

"That cannae be right," Doone said. "I've met her and she's…" looked again, closely. "Sitting right here in front o'me."

"Surprise. One of your city councilpeople is an alien."

"Ye realize this could be very bad for ye… if I were to tell anyoone."

"Yeah, I know. But you shared something very personal with me. I figured you deserved the same consideration."

Doone smiled back. "My name's Hannah, by the way. Ye know… ye have very nice eyes. Why d'ye hide 'em?"

Putting her visor back on, Helga replied, "Partly to protect my identity, partly because a lot of people just find the third eye off-putting. Plus there's all sorts of handy stuff in here. I got a heads-up display, a communicator…" …which suddenly beeped. "Speak of the devil. Magnetica, talk to me." She tapped a control on the visor that activated the external speaker."

"Bad news, I'm afraid. It seems our adversary has managed to obtain a chunk of Unacquirium."

"What's Unacquirum?" Arnold asked.

"Kryptonite, basically," Helga answered. "As in, a rock from space that can kill me. Mags, I want you return to the Sunset Arms. I had Rhia and Trudy bring Robbie there so that everyone's together. Keep an eye on them. Tell Joule to fly to my sister's house and shadow her. I'll stay here."

"Eye-keeping!" Phoebe said, disconnecting.

"Looks like you're in just as much danger as I am now," Arnold said, getting up.

"Maybe you'll get a chance to be my hero," Helga replied, on edge now.

"What's this stuff look like, anyway?"

Suddenly, something came crashing through the window. It was a chunk of rock, rough and grey on one side, encrusted with small purple crystals on the other.

"…like that," Helga said, suddenly collapsing.


	14. Showdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it all comes down to this.

A.N.: Back to 1st person this chapter and next.

Chapter 14

Showdown

HWPD Station, early morning, Monday the 16th

-HELGA-

I knew what the rock was even before it landed. I was familiar with the sensations it brought on. The feeling of your muscles turning to jelly, the burning sensation building within your bloodstream as the unique blend of radiations penetrated your body. Even a small piece of Unacquirium brought on weakness if it was anywhere near me, and this was a pretty big chunk.

Arnold was immediately at my side. "Helga! What's happening?" he asked. It didn't take a species-specific psychic link to sense the concern. And something more.

I could see it in his eyes. Even with his entire adult identity erased, I saw nothing but love in those emerald eyes.

"It's the Unacquirium," I said. "Normally the effect is slow, but this is a large concentration of the stuff, so it's working a lot faster. If you get rid of it right away I should be okay in a while, but hurry."

"Right," he said. "But what about the Memory Master?"

"Don't ye woorry noone aboot her, Arnoold," Hannah said, drawing her sidearm. "She'll have to go through me the get t'the two o' ye."

"Thanks," I said. "I'm sorry I stole your uniform that one time."

"THAT WAS YOU?" she exclaimed, surprised.

"I was crazy as a kid," I explained. "I'm much better now."

While she exited cautiously, gun at the ready, Arnold picked up the piece of Unacquirium. "The window's kind of high up, but I think I might be able to throw it out of here," he said. "Hopefully, I pitch better than I bat."

There were sounds of a struggle outside the office, as Arnold aimed at the window. His first throw was wide and bounced off the wall, back at us. "Nuts," he groused.

"It's okay." I assured him. "Try again. I believe in you."

He tried again, but this time the sound of a gunshot threw him off and once again, he missed. "Aggh!" he said. "I keep messing up!"

"Arnold." I said. "You better not be giving up. That's the one thing you never, ever do. You do that now, I swear to god I'm coming back as a ghost to haunt you forever. Now, you pick up that chunk of space rock, and you make that damn layup!"

"Okay… here goes." He took one more shot and damn if he didn't line it up perfectly! "Yes!" he said. I did it!"

"Toldja, Football-head." I tried to give him a thumbs-up, but my muscles wouldn't obey me. "Well… looks like I won't be going anywhere for a little while, but you did save my life. The paralysis should wear off eventually, and after that, it's just a matter of getting the toxins out of my system before I get my full strength back."

Outside, the sounds of the struggle had stopped. "Sounds like Hannah took her down." Arnold said hopefully.

"Not… exactly."

A figure in a dark red robe and a black hood with a double "M" logo entered, wielding the same gun Hannah had been carrying.

"What'd you do with her?" Arnold asked. That was just like him… always worried about others even as a hooded fiend was holding a gun on him.

"I knocked her out and locked her in the broom closet," the faux-Memory Master answered in her electronically-distorted voice. "I held no personal animosity towards her. You two, on the other hand… I owe you pain.

"Well, you're too late," Arnold said. "I got rid of the Unacquirium. In a little while, Temper's gonna be just fine and she's gonna give you what you have coming."

"Oh, I don't think so," she said, pulling something out of her pocket. "Do you really think I'd waste all of the Unacquirium at once?"

Crap, I thought. She actually planned ahead.

"What do you want?" Arnold asked.

"I want you to have a seat," she said, gesturing with the gun. "You will sit there and watch as your lovely wife – yes, I know exactly who she is – slowly dies of blood poisoning. And, once you have endured that pain, I will do you the final mercy of ending your pathetic life."

"And if I don't want to cooperate?" he asked.

"Then I will shoot you in the spine and you will have no choice but to cooperate," she replied.

"Now say 'Obi-Wan has taught you well.'" I said.

"I would be less glib if I were you, Pataki," our captor said. "Consider that your next words may be your last."

"Or 'I AM YOUR FATHER.' Say that. It'd be hilarious."

"SILENCE!"

She kicked me in the stomach. Even with my deadened muscles, I felt that. I probably should have stopped right there. But nobody ever said I was a person who knew when to quit. "That's good. Now say 'I'll take them myself. Cover me.'" Arnold chuckled a bit in spite of the situation. He always did love Star Wars.

That was one upside to the whole memory loss thing. The third and fourth trilogies would all be new to him.

"Laugh all you want, but your hope is running out," she said, clearly upset she was losing control of the conversation. "You have no chance to escape."

"I find your lack of faith disturbing," he said, joining in on the mockery of her voice.

"SHUT UP!" She backhanded him across the face. He rubbed the sore spot, hushed but still defiant.

"What the hell is your problem, anyway?" I said. "What'd we ever do to you?"

"You dare ask me that? You know very well what you did!"

"Clearly, we don't," Arnold interjected. "You're wearing a mask and altering your voice, how are we supposed to know who you are and what we supposedly did?"

"I suppose that is true," she said. "Very well. Gaze upon the face of the one whom you have wronged!"

She removed her hood, revealing the face of a woman in her mid-to-late-thirties, her curly brown hair developing its first strands of silver.

I had absolutely no idea who she was.

"Uh," Arnold started, echoing my own thoughts. "I have absolutely no idea who you're supposed to be. Which is kind of your fault, since you stole all my memories. Helga? Do you know who she is?"

"Sorry. Not a clue." I said. "Never seen her before in my life."

"How dare you act like you do not know me?" the woman said. "After you took my true love away from me?"

"…we did what now?" I asked.

"I… am the Bride of La Sombra!"

Arnold looked confused. "Wait… you were married to La Sombra? Aren't you… kinda too young for that?"

"Not the original La Sombra… his heir. Gregorio Valdez."

"Wait," I said. "I just saw the file on him. Pretty sure he's not married."

"Well, not yet," the Bride said. "In fact, technically we have not even met. But I have written him many letters. Sure, he has never actually replied to any of them…. but once I bring him your heads, he is sure to do me the honor of becoming his bride!"

"…wait…" Arnold said, now even more confused. "Do you mean to tell me he doesn't even know who you are?"

"Not now… but soon, he will have no choice but to return my love for him!"

"Heh… heh heh heh… heh heh heh heh heh heh heh…"

The blood poisoning was really starting to kick in now. It hurt to even laugh. But I couldn't help it.

"And just what is so funny, Ms. Pataki?" the Bride asked.

"You," I said. "You are 100%, Grade A, prime number one koo-koo banana pants."

"Beg pardon?'

"Touched in the head. Lost your marbles. Not playing with a full deck. Several fries short of an Extra Value Meal. Bought a first-class ticket on the SS Whackadoo. In short, my dear, you are completely out of your mind."

"You dare to mock my love?" she spat, her attention starting to draw away from holding the gun on Arnold.

"You're not in love. You have no idea what love even is."

"How dare you…"

Good. She was starting to focus her attention more on me. Now I had to hook her. Speak slowly. Deliberately, compellingly. "Let me tell you a little story. There's this girl. Four years old. Not much to look at. She might as well not exist as far as her parents are concerned. They're far too focused on her perfect, beautiful, talented sister, so they treat her like she's invisible.

"So, this one day, it's the first day of preschool. It's almost time to go, but the girl's parents are so absorbed in paying attention to her older sister that she's forced to go, alone… I remind you, this girl is four years old, and she's walking the city streets without any supervision, in the rain, mind you. She's cold, lonely, scared out of her mind. A dog steals her lunch. A car splashes her with mud. At four years old, she knows the kind of misery some people learn over a lifetime.

"And then, she meets an angel. A football-headed angel who offers her his umbrella. For the very first time in her short, pathetic life, she knows what kindness feels like. Can you blame her for falling instantly in love with the boy? Can you blame her for being consumed with the thought of him, every moment of the day? Can you blame her for going just a little bit crazy?

"And so, over the years, her love grew stronger. She would spy on him from afar. She would compose volume upon volume of poetry dedicated to him. She would construct elaborate shrines to his glory at worship, literally, at the altar she had erected in his honor.

"But it didn't stop there. She would concoct convoluted schemes to make certain no other girl caught his eye, whether impersonating his pen pal to usurp her date with him, sabotaging carnival rides, or tricking several other girls into dropping out of a play just for an excuse to kiss him without revealing her feelings. That's not even counting the tantric and voodoo spells she cast. Because this girl was just a little bit crazy."

Oh, yes. It was working. I had her attention now. I had her rapt. She was mine. She didn't notice anything except the sound of my voice.

"Now, I know what you're thinking. 'That's not love. That's obsession.' And you would be right, if not for one thing: At the end of the day, this girl, above all, cared for this boy more than she cared for anyone, even herself. Time and again, she would sacrifice her own happiness for the boys'… whether it was trading a cherished gift to restore his faith or sacrificing potential wealth to save his home, she did it over and over again, until one day he could not help but notice. And at that moment, the girl finally truly knew what real love was, because real love is something mutual.

"And she learned more. Real love grows. It starts small, but it builds, it strengthens, it becomes a tangible thing. And sometimes, it becomes damaged, it can crack… but it never truly breaks. It begins to grow again, stronger, tempered by ordeals. And it multiplies. It forms branches. And those branches form branches.

"So, no, what you have isn't love, because in the end, all you care about is yourself. What you want. His feelings never came into it." She was growing agitated. Angry. Good. "He's just a shiny thing that you decided you have to possess. The infamous Son of La Sombra, all yours. You'd be the envy of all the other… I dunno, wacko chicks who have a messed-up fetish for killers? You'd be surprised at how many there are. And that's what you aspire to be, isn't it. Queen of the wackadoo criminal psycho-hags."

"ENOUGH!" she finally exclaimed. "It doesn't matter anyway. Soon, you will be dead. He will die immediately after. And you will, never, ever get THIS back."

She removed a cylinder from her robe. "Do you know what this is? This cylinder contains all of your husband's memories. Oops!" She dropped the cylinder and smashed it under her boot. "Now they're gone. How sad." She turned toward the desk where Arnold was sitting. "Wouldn't you agr-"

But he was no longer there. He was behind her. I had kept her so distracted that he was able to sneak up and take her totally unawares. He brought both of his fists down on her head as hard as he could, making her fall to the floor and drop the gun, which he kicked into the corner. He tackled the fallen felon, making sure she was fully immobilized.

"Told you you'd be my hero, Hair Boy," I said. "Kinda shocked you'd hit a lady…"

"Helga…almost every woman I've met over the last few days has been much, much stronger than I am."

"True, true… you, uh, think you can get rid of the rock that's slowly killing me?"

"Oh, uh, sure, but… what about her?"

"I believe I can handle that," a brogue-laden voice answered. We glanced up at Hannah, who had apparently just managed to free hersef.

"You got out?" I asked.

"Y'think the Academy doesna train cadets t'get themselves outta closets?" she answered proudly.

"Are you okay?"

"Nothin' some ice an' a couple o' ibuprofen won't fix." She handcuffed the Bride. "Come along, then. We've a nice little holding cell for ye. It'll be a little preview of what ye got to look forward to. I'll alsoo be takin' this bit o' sparkly to th'evidence vault." She snatched up the small chunk of Unacquirium.

"There's a bigger chunk of that in the alley behind that window," Arnold informed. "You should get that before someone grabs it."

"On it," Hannah said, smiling. It was going to be nice having another ally on the force.

As the Bride was led away, she suddenly started to laugh.

"And what's so funny?" I asked.

"I still won," she said, laughing even harder.

"Uh… I know you live in your own little Queen of the Whackadoos world, but Arnold's fine, I'm going to be very soon, and you are going away for a very long time, so, tell me, dear… just how have you won?"

"Because while your husband's body is fine, his memories are gone forever. I didn't kill him… but I have killed his love for you. And you will have to live with that for the rest of your miserable lives."

As Hannah dragged her off, still laughing hysterically, our eyes fell on the smashed cylinder lying on the office's tile floor.

I knew, deep down, that my feelings for Arnold would never change. But I couldn't possibly know his. Without his memory, could he ever truly learn to love me the way he once did? Sure, Phoebe had said there was a possibility that he could regain some, maybe even all, of his memories on his own… but it was just a possibility. There was a chance, a very good one, that he would never get them back.

And if he never did… would it be fair for me to hold on to him? To force him to continue living a life that was hollow? If it came to that… could I do any less than let him go?

Perhaps it was true, then.

Perhaps the Bride truly had won.


	15. Square One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we just might have a happy ending.

Chapter 15

Square One

Hillwood PD, literally seconds later

-ARNOLD-

We both looked down at the shattered remains of the cylinder that had held my memories. Or, at least, so the Bride had claimed.

I looked back at Helga. She looked up at me, an expression of defeat on her face. Judging by her expression, you would never imagine that the Bride's scheme had been utterly thwarted. Surely, the Unacquirium poisoning had taken its toll on her. Her rosy skin had faded to a very pale, almost white hue, black veins stood out against it, and the glow had left her normally luminous eyes (her visor had fallen off at some point). Yet, looking into those eyes, I could tell that it wasn't the toxic mineral that was the problem.

"Helga… it'll be all right," I said. "Is… is there anything I can do?"

"It's fine, Arnold," she said lifelessly. "The paralysis is starting to wear off. See?" She wiggled the tip of her tail to illustrate. "Darn. That was supposed to be my finger. Oh, well, close enough."

"Oh, well, that's good," I said, unconvinced.

"Once I can move again, it's just a matter of sweating the toxins out. You can take me back to your folks' house. They put in a sauna in the basement when they remodeled the place. Couple of hours in there and I'll be well on my way to getting my strength back."

"You've thought this out," I said.

"It's not my first bout with Unacquirium poisoning. Just a hazard of the job." She wiggled her fingers. "There we go. Anyway, I figure we can take it slow today and then call Stinky tomorrow morning. No hurry, really…"

"Um… why would we be calling Stinky?" I asked, confused. Wasn't he a lawyer? Why would we be needing a lawyer?"

"To work out the details of the separation settlement. I want things to be fair and amicable all the way. Naturally, you will have full visitation rights with the kids…"

"Whoa… hold on," I said. "Who said anything about a separation? Don't I get a say in this?"

"Look, I don't like it, either but… I can't force you to stay in a marriage that you don't remember. It's probably best if we separate as friends." She smiled weakly. "As you're so fond of saying, 'it's the right thing to do.'"

"No. It really isn't." I said.

"Arnold, you don't remember me, you don't remember your kids, you don't remember any of this, and whatever hope you have of remembering us is lying in a shattered pile of whatever-the-hell on the floor there."

"That's not true. I… could remember! I remembered my nickname for Trudy just a few hours ago! You remember what Phoebe said, the rest could come back in time!"

"How much time, though? It could be weeks… months… years… maybe never! I can't make you stay with me until you do… if you ever do!"

"Helga… you're not making me do anything. I want to stay."

"Do you?" she asked. Tears were starting to well up in her eyes. "Or is that your overactive football-headed sense of nobility making you stay? I'm giving you an out. A clean break. You don't have to stay with me out of whatever duty you feel is making you stay with me."

"I mean it, Helga." I said. "I'm not leaving you. Not now, not ever. I may not remember you… but I know, for a fact, that I love you, and there's no one else I want to be with. As for our memories… sure, they may be gone. But we can always make new ones."

That did it. The tears that had been threatening to arrive finally burst free from her eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Did… did I say something wrong?"

But she was smiling. "God… you are such a football-head. But you're my football-head." She tried to move her hands to wipe away her tears, but they wouldn't obey her. "Uh… little help."

"Of course." I grabbed some tissues from Gerald's desk to wipe away her tears.

"Don't forget the upper one," She reminded me.

"How could I?" I said, dabbing at the top-center eye.

It was about five more minutes before she had regained enough feeling in her body to be helped to her feet. She was still barely able to stand on her own, but with my support, she was able to hobble out of the station, to where Hannah was waiting with a squad car to give us a lift home.

I grunted under her mostly-dead weight. "You're a lot heavier than you look," I said.

"You sayin' I'm fat, Hair Boy?" she snapped.

"No! That's not… I mean…"

She chuckled. "Relax, honey… I'm just messing with you. I weigh a lot because my muscles and bones are a lot denser than a normal person's. It says a lot that you're up to the task of lugging me around like this." She gave me a quick peck on the cheek as I helped her into the back seat of the car, then slid into the opposite seat."

"Thanks for the lift, Hannah," she said.

"'Tis nae trouble, Helga," the police officer replied. "Ye've doone a greet deal for this city… even if I havena' appreciated it as much as I should've. Funny… y'know, I actually feel this… strange connection t'ye now that I've gotten to know ye…"

"Yeah… it's funny, but I kinda feel the same. I can't put my finger on it, exactly…" She tapped her chin in thought. "Only other time I've felt it is with Sheena, of all people. I couldn't figure it out then either…. Ah, maybe it'll come to me eventually."  
\--  
We arrived back at the former Sunset Arms, dawn still at least two hours away.

"I don't wanna wake anyone," I said. "Do you have a key?"

"It's a combination lock," Helga replied. "The code's 10796. Tap it in on the keypad, then hold down pound until it beeps twice."

I followed Helga's instructions, then opened the door, only to find my parents waiting on the couch, in the throes of worry-based insomnia. "Helga!" Dad shouted, noticing her weakened condition.

"Hey, Pa," Helga replied weakly. "We're gonna need the sauna."

"Of course," Miles said, hurrying downstairs to prep.

"So, what happened?" Stella prompted. "Arnold, are you not taking proper care of my daughter-in-law?" she mock-scolded.

"Ma, if it wasn't for your son, you'd be making funeral plans right how. Hopefully, nothing fancy. Just one like old King Tut." She chuckled. "Solid gold coffin, big ol' pyramid…"

"Seriously," she said. "Tell me what happened."

"Well, the good news is, nobody's trying to kill us anymore. The bad news is… we lost Arnold's memories for good."

"Oh…" my mom said, looking disappointed.

"I'm okay with it, really," I insisted. "What's really important is that we're all here, together, and we have a clean start."

"Arnold, sweetheart," Helga said, smirking, "that was incredibly sappy. You're really lucky I like sap." She glanced at mom. "The kids are asleep, I take it."

"I put them to bed myself," she confirmed. "They're in Arnold's old room, so they'll be perfectly comfortable."

I glanced upward at the balcony. Five eyes were looking back, poorly hidden behind the railing. "Are you sure about that," I asked.

"Oh, for…" mom groaned. "It's four in the morning. Go to bed."

"Mommy sick…" a small voice answered.

"Mommy's going to be fine," Helga answered her son. "Go to sleep. That means you too, Trudy. You have school in the morning."

"Aw, mom… I only need three hours…"

"Then you have just enough time. Go." she insisted.

Trudy hefted her little brother and began to make her way back to my old room, but hesitated. "You sure you're all right?"

Helga gave a thumbs-up. "I'm the mom here, sweetie. Worrying's my job. Go to bed."  
\--  
We were soon in the basement.

"Could you help me with my zipper, dear?" she asked.

"Um, sure…" I said, gingerly unzipping the back of her uniform, nervously averting my eyes as the skin beneath was revealed.

"Relax, sweetie," she said. "I'm wearing underwear, You're not going to see anything unfit for nine-year-old eyes… or thirty-four-year-old eyes that think they're nine."

Oh, what's wrong with me? I am thirty-four! I'm allowed to see my wife in her underwear! Heck… I'm allowed to do a lot more! I can… KISS her! So, what's holding me back?

Nevertheless, I still kept my eyes averted as she shrugged her costume off.

"Okay, honey, you can look now," she said after some time." I risked a glance back, bracing myself for an eyeful of more skin than I was ready for, only to find the reality outstripping my imagination.

She was completely naked, save for a strategically-wrapped towel secured just under her wingjoints.

"H-helga…" I stammered.

"Sorry to spring this on you," she said, smirking, "I was hoping the shock would jar something loose. Anything?"

I shook my head. "No… sorry. Still nothing. I, uh… it's nice though…"

Helga smiled. "We'll get you there."  
\--  
Time passed. A part of me, a part that had been slowly stirring ever since I saw her in that dress Saturday night, craved to be with her now, craved to tear that towel off and caress every part of her. It was a part of me that I was scared of, the adult part of me, the part I'd been denying.

But if I was to move forward… I could no longer resist it.

I opened the door to the sauna. Helga was looking much better now, the veiny patterns on her skin gone as it resumed its healthy rose hue.

"Coming in?" she asked. "I wouldn't mind the company. You're a bit overdressed, though. And I can't vouch for the smell. Four armpits means my musk can be a bit… overwhelming."

"I… don't know…"

Actually, at this moment, there was nothing I wanted more. Still… an increasingly smaller part of me resisted.

"Please," she pleaded. "You need to get used to this again if we're going to make those new memories together."

The look in those eyes finally snuffed out that final nagging doubt. I started shedding my clothes and wrapped a towel around my nether regions. I took a seat next to her on the sauna's bench as she ladled more water on the hot rocks, releasing a fresh cloud of steam. I could see the beads of sweat glistening on her pink skin, smell her scent…

"There we go," she said, wrapping her right pair of arms around me. "Not so bad at all, is it."

"I… could get used to it," I said, relaxing. "I'm not sure what I bring to this marriage, though… I don't know how I'm going to be a history professor without any of my knowledge."

"We'll work something out," I said. "You could be a stay-at-home dad for a while, until you find something else you think you could do. We can get by on my income. Especially seeing as I'm about to become a big-shot Hollywood writer."

"You are?"

"A studio wants to buy the rights to Monster Princess. Rhonda's been trying tto get me to write the screenplay. I'm thinking that maybe it's something I can do."

"Of course you can, Helga. You're amazing." I gazed into her eyes and realized that there was one thing I wanted to do, more than anything else I've ever wanted to do.

I leaned in. Our hands found each other's shoulders, her other hands my waist. My lips puckered. Our eyes slowly closed as her own followed suit.

And met mine.

And in the darkness… a spark.

A light.

And then another. And another. Two. Four. Eight. Dozens. Hundreds. Each one, a kiss.

Our first, on a stage, me as Romeo, her as Juliet, and apparently not quite as good an actress as I'd thought.

Our second, on a beach, again, supposedly she was acting, but nobody needs that much mouth to mouth.

On a rooftop, a kiss of premature confession, one neither of us was ready for, sending us into denial, yet cementing the inevability.

In a jungle temple, a kiss of gratitude for the greatest gift of all. And a true beginning.

In the janitors' closet, under the bleachers in the gym, behind dumpsters, in dark movie theaters, stolen, secret kisses away from the prying eyes of friends not ready to accept what we had.

In my room, a relieved kiss, when she came back to me after being taken, forever changed, yet still the same.

At Rhonda's Christmas party, a bold kiss, defiant, daring the world to deny what she no longer feared revealing.

A sad kiss goodbye, at a time when I was forced to leave her behind. Another, attempted but angrily denied, when I attempted to pick up where we had left off and found it wasn't so easy. A kiss of forgiveness when tragedy brought me back into her life.

A kiss of commitment as we separated to attend colleges on opposite coasts, promising we would find our way back to each other. A kiss of consolation when I lost the woman who shaped my childhood. A kiss of reunion the day I prepared to ask her the most important question of our lives, only to have her beat me to it. A kiss to seal our relationship forever. A kiss of celebration the day our union expanded.

And many others, each kiss a memory, each memory an emotion, growing brighter and brighter, illuminating all around it, connections forming between them, searing roads into the map of my mind, restoring that which had been given up for lost.

Seemingly an eternity later, my eyes opened again and my lips parted from hers.

"It's been way too long since we've done that," she said. I simply smiled back. "So… what did you think?"

"Your middle name is Geraldine. You have a small half-moon-shaped birthmark on your inner thigh. You once wrote a 127-chapter Star vs. the Forces of Evil fanfic that to this day, you refuse to let anyone see because you think it's awful. You won't eat canned corn because you think it's the grossest thing ever. At the 2021 Cheese Festival, when Douglas Cain was the guest MC, you talked us all into staging a zombie attack to troll him. Your roller derby team was called the Artists of Mayhem, and your nickname was 'Frida Kihllo'. I was going to propose to you on October 12, 2028, but you beat me to it with a flash mob the day before. Robbie was conceived in a broom closet at the Hillwood Philharmonic when we both realized we hated Mahler and decided to find something more fun to do."

She stared at me for a moment, processing what I just said.

"You're back," she said, finally.

"I'm back," I said.

She started to chuckle. "Are you kidding me." she mumbled.

"Honey?"

"Of course," she said. "Of course the solution would be this stupid. Love's first kiss? That's the most schmaltzy Disneyesque resolution ever! That's like… fanfic levels of contrived! Arnold… if I ever, I mean, EVER write something this bad, I want you to take me out back and shoot me."

"Helga!"

"I'm serious. You have to promise me that if I ever turn in a piece of lazy hack writing like that, you will put me out of my misery."

I chuckled. "Whatever you say, Helga."

"That's right. Whatever I say."

"So…. How much longer do you have to stay in here?"

"I figure about an hour before all the poison's out of my system."

"Well then… I can think of one way we can pass the time."

"Really? In here?"

"Why not? It's not like we can get much sweatier…"

"True…"

And so, I nudged the door closed as we allowed our towels to drop off.

It was good to be a grownup again.


	16. Same as it Ever Was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which all's well that ends well.

Epilogue

Same as it Ever Was

Sunset Arms

Morning of the 16th

-TRUDY-

"HEY ARNOLD. HEY ARNOLD. HEY ARNOLD. HEY ARN-"

My tail lashed out at that weird potato-powered clock designed to look like a young version of my dad, knocking it off the dresser. God, it was annoying. And he woke up to this thing every morning?

I don't know how I managed it, but I somehow did get my three hours that night. Morning came, and I awoke, not very refreshed and no less worried about the situation. Parents didn't seem to get that telling kids not to worry just makes us worry more.

Nevertheless, I shifted to my human form and dressed as I would on any other weekday. The folks were counting on me to keep acting as if nothing was wrong. I was going to step up to the challenge.

Dressed, backpack loaded for the day, I went down the stairs. The smell of a homemade breakfast wafted up to my nose. I smiled. Bacon does make the hurt go away. Okay, technically, it relocates the hurt to the arteries where it bides its time until middle age, but I can wait.

The fam was already seated around the table, though mom and dad looked like they hadn't slept at all. "Morning, Starglow," dad half-said, half-yawned. "Did you sleep well?"

"In the technical sense," I replied, loading my plate with what Grandma called "eggs in a basket" and bacon. "You?"

"Not exactly," Mom said. "We were a little too, um…" she coughed. "Occupied."

"Recovering from the poisoning," dad added quickly. "You know how it is." He was trying to cover something and frankly I'm not sure I wanted to know what it was. Probably gross parent stuff. Don't dwell on it.

"In any case, we've decided to do the responsible, adult thing and blow off work for the morning so we can catch up on our sleep. So… what's going on at school today?" Mom asked, clearly trying to steer the subject away.

Not being particularly interested in knowing the details of what they were doing last night, I decided to follow the new thread of conversation. "We have a math test today. Multiplying and dividing decimals."

"Hmm. Well, I trust you're prepared."

"I never really trusted math," dad said. "Something about it just doesn't add up."

I froze, fork halfway to my mouth.

That was a Dad Joke.

"You're back," I said.

"And I'm never going anywhere again," he added, smiling broadly.

I dropped the fork and ran up and hugged him.

"You'd better not," I demanded.  
\--  
PS118 Cafeteria, Noontime

-AKIKO-

As opposed to this weekend, today had been uneventful. Mr. Lee had given his usual English, Science, and Social Studies lessons, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. There was still Gym, Art and that math test to go, but all of that was pretty typical.

You would think the world would stop for you with your dad in the hospital, but no, it just kept on turning.

At least I'd be able to visit him after school today. And according to mom, he could be out of the hospital as early as tomorrow. Still, it was almost impossible to concentrate on schoolwork today, and I didn't exactly have high hopes of my performance on this afternoon's test. Maybe I could get Mr. Lee to give me a redo. There had to be some sort of "Daddy got shot by a supervillain" exception.

I paid very little attention to what the lunch lady was putting on my plate. Salisbury something or other with a vegetable thing and pasta a la whatever. No dessert. Nobody at my table ever ate dessert. It made you fat.

Force of habit took me to the Popular Kids' table. I slid in next to Yolanda as Nikki went on about some cute accessory she'd found at the mall Sunday.

"So, like, it's fuchsia, which according to PreteeenMiss dot Com is the new magenta, which is great because magenta is so last week…" she rambled.

"Totes," replied Claire. Nobody had even acknowledged my presence yet.

I glanced over at Trudy and Riva's table. Trudy was animatedly describing something to one of the other kids she hung out with, a sci-fi nerd named Norman. The rest of her group was just as eclectic… a jock or two, a Skulker [A.N.: 2040's slang for what used to be called Goth], a hippie, and others who really didn't fit into any easily-defied niche (like Trudy herself. Geez, why do I have her on the brain lately?)

"…so, like, anyway," Mara was saying now, "Laura was all 'nuh-uh' and I'm all 'yuh-huh' and she's like 'Step off…'"

"Did you even notice I wasn't there?" I found myself saying.

"Ex-cuse me?" Mara asked, irritated at the interruption.

"On Sunday. None of you even bothered to call."

She paused, as if trying to recall. "Oh, right," she conceded. "I knew something was off."

"Yeah, now that you mention it…" Claire added. "What happened?"

"My dad was shot." I said

"He was?" Lina asked, concerned.

"It was all over the news," I said, a bit irritated.

Yolanda shrugged. "Oh, I don't really pay attention to that."

"Yeah, it's like, real depressing and stuff."

"Is he gonna be okay?" Lina asked.

"Yeah, he'll be all right. I'm gonna be going to see him after school today."

"'Kay," Claire said, seemingly not really paying attention. It struck me, then and there… my friends were really, really shallow. They don't notice me when I'm gone. They barely notice me when I'm there. They barely notice each other. They're all in their own little worlds that barely intersect with each other.

"So, like, anyway," Claire continued, "this Saturday, there's a sale at Beat Feet, and I totally have my eye on these totes adorable red Caprini platforms…"

"Can't," I said, determinedly. "I have a pig war."

That got their attention. "A what?" Nikki asked.

"A pig war. It's a reenactment of this battle that took place in colonial days. We all wear period outfits and go over to Elk Island. One team plays the British, the other the Colonial army, and we chase a pig around the island until one team captures it. I heard they used to eat the pig, but they changed the rules a while back and now there's just a pizza party afterward."

Claire looked disgusted. "Why would anyone want to waste their Saturday chasing some disgusting animal around?" she scoffed.

"I dunno," I said, a little embarrassed. "It sounded kind of fun when Trudy invited me, so I said yes. I'm kinda sick of shopping anyway."

"Wait… Trudy invited you?" Claire asked. "Trudy Shortman? Since when did you hang out with her?"

"I mean.. her parents and my parents have always been really close, so I've kinda always known her…"

"But she's such a weirdo. She dresses like a boy and hangs out with the losers and has a lizard for a pet and I've kinda heard rumors that she… y'know…"

"What?" I wasn't sure I liked what she was going to insinuate.

"Plays for the other team, if you get my meaning…"

"Other team? Claire, this is fourth grade. There are no teams yet! And even if there were… so what? Why should it even matter? She's nice, funny, and smart, and anyone should be proud to have her as a friend! Why should who she likes have any bearing on it?"

Claire sat there, shocked. This was the most any member of our circle had ever dared to talk back to the self-proclaimed queen of the fourth grade. "I mean…. Like… I have nothing against it," she said, regaining her composure after my challenge, "but, like, she's probably checking me out behind my back."

"Sounds like you have a really high opinion of yourself," I said.

"Well, duh. Everyone knows how things work. It's, like, math or something. I'm a ten, and she's, like… maybe a five. On a good day. She can't help but want me, you know? But I'm out of her league."

"Uh huh." I said, irritation growing.

"You understand, right?" she said. "You're, like, at least an eight. You get it."

And that was it. "Well, thanks, I suppose. You really are a wonderful person. Allowing me, a mere eight, to bask in your glorious ten presence. But, to be honest… I'm just not feeling worthy of your charity anymore." I got up, taking my untouched tray with me. "I simply don't belong in your elite circle. I banish myself to the lower echelons, to join the unworthy common masses. Farewell."

"Ingrate," I heard her say as I walked over to Trudy's table.

"Hey," I said. "Room for one more?"

"I dunno," Riva answered. "We're kind of booked up, but I think there might be an opening in July…"

"Riva!" Trudy elbowed the chubby girl. "Of course you can join us. Riva was just being OBNOXIOUS LIKE ALWAYS…"

"You knew what you were getting when you signed the friend contract," Riva deadpanned, scooting over.

I settled in as Riva went over some bizarre occurrence at a cousin's wedding. The conversation changed topics a bunch of times, to school, movies, comics, sports… all we'd ever really talked about at my table was fashion. I hadn't even realized what I'd been missing.

"Excuse me," a voice interrupted while I was comparing notes on our current English assignment with the Skulker kid, who it turned out was named Leon and was surprisingly friendly.

I turned to find Lina standing there, looking unsure of something.

'Yes?" I asked.

"That pig war thing… can anyone come?"

I raised an eyebrow. "As in…. you?"

"It sounded fun," she admitted. "And… I think Claire was out of line. It was… it was really cool of you to stand up to her like that. I kinda wish I could sometimes…"

"Why can't you?" I said. "I did, and it wasn't the end of the world."

"Yes it was! She's totally blowing you up on Grouper now! Posting all sorts of rumors about you and Trudy being a secret couple…"

Trudy suddenly began to choke on a mouthful of the unidentified piece of meat.

"Y'know what," I said, "let her. If that's what people want to believe, let 'em believe it. We know the truth, right, Trudy?"

"*cough cough* Uh yeah, nothing romantic going on here… I mean… we're nine, right? Who does that stuff at our age?"

"Exactly!" It really was ridiculous. I mean, sure, I've been thinking about her a lot the past couple of days, and I like spending time with her, and she has a really nice laugh that I like hearing, and I can't help but notice she has really nice eyes, and-

Oh dear.

Ohhhh dear.  
\--  
Epilogue II

April 13, 2015

Gerald Field

-HELGA-

No. No no no no no.

This was my fault. Me and my stupid temper and my stupid contrarian personality and my stupid wall around my heart. The wall I'd lowered for that one, brief second weeks ago, only to get a dagger thrust into the soft, sensitive organ it had protected. And so, I had resolved to build that wall again, stronger, thicker, never again to be penetrated.

And so, my shrines had been dismantled, my journals shoved in the back of my closet, my gold-plated heart hidden in the back of my bottom dresser drawer. I had intended to simply throw them all out, but there was that one stubborn part of my twisted ten-year-old psyche that wouldn't let me. But even then, I couldn't bear to look at them. They only served to remind me of that moment of rejection.

So, that was it. After all the hurly burly was done, when the battle'd been lost and won, he came to me and offered me a chance to take back my ill-timed confession. And take it back I did, resolving, then and there, that if I could not purge these last embers of love from my broken heart, that I would instead push their object away so that they could never be stoked into a flame ever again.

And so, over the next weeks, I became colder and crueler to him than I had ever been. If I had been insulting before, I had now become downright hurtful.

Here, then, were the bitter fruits of my labor…. Arnold, distracted by my malicious, incessant taunting, now lay on the ground at my feat, unconscious, victim of a baseball he never saw coming. Concussed, by way of my hateful actions. Possibly worse. This, then, was the unkindest beaning of all.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. Could he hear me? "I didn't mean it. I swear. I never wanted to hurt you. The truth is, I-"

"Mmm-mmm-mmm, he does not look good," Gerald commented. Of course. My moment always had to be ruined by the gaggle of yahoos that I found myself constantly surrounded by.

"Well, no duh, Tall Hair Boy!" I shouted, snapping back into Helga Mode. "He just got hit in his head by a baseball going at 60 miles an hour! Criminy, how'd Mensa miss signing up a brilliant mind like yours?"

"Well, excuse me, Helga," he sneered. "Since when do you care, anyway?"

"It's called common decency, Geraldo! Maybe you've heard of it? I may be mean, but I'm not some deranged sociopath! I don't actually set out to hurt people!"

"Could've fooled me," Gerald muttered under his breath, shutting up when I shot him a death glare.

"All right, everyone just give him some room!" I commanded. Someone had to take charge and it was gonna be me. "Phoebe! Go run to the convenience store and get some ice!"

"Getting!" Phoebe answered, scurrying off.

"Princess! Make yourself useful for once and use that fancy smartphone you keep bragging about to call an ambulance!"

"You're real lucky this is for Arnold," huffed the haughty girl, dialing.

"Curly!"

"I know! You want me to find the Golden Parrot before the next Full Moon so you can lift the Gnome King's Curse!"

"…uh, yeah. You go do that!" He ran off, cackling insanely. "Pinkboy, Stinko, Dicknose… Uh, go get an adult or something!"

"Hey, who put you in charge?" Sid asked.

"My friend Betsy did," I said, raising my fist. "Feel like arguing with her?"

"Uh, no, he replied. "She seems like a very wise person." He and the other two Stooges hurried off.

Phoebe soon returned with the ice. "This should be sufficient to reduce any swelling, though I would still recommend having a physician check him, as a concussion is a distinct possibility in cases such as this."

"The ambulance should be here in a few minutes," Rhonda informed. "How is he?"

"How the heck should I know, Rondaloid?" I snapped. "Do I look like a doctor?"

"Well, sor-ree, Helga," she shot back, nose in the air as usual. "I was simply showing concern for a friend, there's no need to bite my face off."

"Too bad. It'd probably be an improvement."

"Well, I never-"

"And the whole world is grateful for it."

"Why, you uncultured…"

"Ugh… stop fighting…"

"You stay out of this, Arnold – ARNOLD!"

The oblong-skulled object of my desires had indeed been stirred by our argument. His eyes slowly opened to their usual half-lidded state. "What happened?" He said, groggily.

"Welcome back, bro," Gerald said. "You got beaned, real bad. Then it hit Eugene on the rebound."

"I'm okay…" he said weakly.

"I had the strangest dream," Arnold said, looking up at his gathered friends. "And you were there… and you… and you… and you too, Helga…"

Me? Did my beloved truly behold my image as his mind drifted through Morpheus's realm? Did he dream of me as I did of him? Was I his Dulcinea in the twilight realms of his subconscious? Or was I the opposite, a cursed hobgoblin haunting his nightmares, forever cast in such role by my cruel behavior? Had my foul administrations eternally tainted my image in his subconscious? O callous emotion, what depredation hath I wrought upon my beloved?

"What was it?" asked Gerald. "Some kinda strange future where you were married to Helga again?"

"No, I think it was Star Wars-themed," Arnold said.

"Princess was probably Jabba the Hutt," I snarked. I just couldn't help it.

"Hmmph," she said. "I won't even dignify that. And anyway Jabba would obviously be Harold."

"True," I said. "You're more of a Chewbacca."

"At least that makes me one of the good guys. You'd probably be The Emperor or something."

"Guys," Arnold pleaded. "Your fighting's really giving me a headache. Just… stop, okay?"

We paused.

"Fine," Rhonda said. "For you, I'll drop it."

"Y'know… I think you two could actually be really good friends if you tried." Arnold said.

"Friends with Miss Priss? Not likely," I scoffed.

"Not. A chance." Rhonda agreed, huffing and turning her back to me.

"Oh come on," he said.

"Y'know, I gotta go with the girls on this one," Gerald mused. "It's just not gonna happen. Maybe Phoebe was right about gettin' you checked out for a concussion."

"Pfft… I'm fine, Sheena," Arnold said.

We glanced at each other.

"Yeah, you're gettin' on that ambulance," I agreed.

The ambulance finally arrived a few minutes later. I helped Arnold up as the paramedic helped him on board.

"Thanks," he said. "For helping me back there. I… was kinda worried that you hated me. Believe me, Helga… I don't want that." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Actually… I think I'm really lucky to have someone like you in my life."

He… he wants me in his life? After the nasty treatment I've given him over the past weeks, he still wants my company? O, beatific ovoid-headed angel! Would that my wretched barbed tongue could express the fevered emotions thy presence begets in my soul! Alas, the words lodge in my throat, turned to bilious venom by my fear of honesty, forever spat back in your face!

"Well… don't read too much into it, Football Head! I was just feeling guilty about getting you hit is all! It's not like… like I like you or anything!"

He chuckled as the ambulance doors closed. "Whatever you say, Helga."

As the ambulance drove off, I sighed. "If only."

THE END


	17. Deleted Scene: Sister Act

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Lloyd sisters bond.

A.N.: Yes, this story's still over, but I took a look back at it and realized there was a huge oversight.

In chapter 9, I introduced Rhonda's eccentric artist sister, Rhia. In the next chapter, Rhonda herself shows up. Yet, at no point do these two share any screen time. This has been feeling like a major misstep, so I decided to fix that. Enjoy!

Deleted Scene: Sister Act

Highway 9, en route to Groening Airport, in Rhiannon Olivia Lloyd's sapphire-blue 2031 Whisper

-RHIA-

What is family?

Well, it's many things, but for me it's always boiled down to this: Family means, when you need a ride to the airport, they always have to give you one.

And that was where I found myself now, gliding down the highway in the car that I had saved up my own money to buy, rather than accept from Daddy on the condition that I straighten up and fly right. My older sister, Rhonda, the one who didn't make an art project of her hair, poke multiple holes in herself, or have a dragon permanently imprinted on her back skin, who had dutifully gone to Columbia and gotten her MBA rather than attend a local art school, sat in the passenger's seat, going on about the events of the past few days.

"…so, it turns out it was just some loony jail groupie with an obsessive crush on LaSombra's son, can you believe it? Anyway, Arnold managed to knock her out and she's going to jail for a long time, and Helga told me that he's gotten his full memory back."

"Well, that's a relief." It had been really upsetting to see Helga having to deal with that. Growing up, she'd pretty much been my role model, even more than Rhonda had been. She'd always been so tough, so smart, so confident, so passionate in her creativity.

Some times, in moments of weakness, I wished she had been my real sister instead of Rhonda.

Now don't get me wrong. I truly do love Rhonda, she's been a wonderful sister in every way, but Helga… she knows me in a way that Rhonda can't. Because she's been me. The second sister, in the shadow of someone amazing and accomplished. Olga Pataki, stunningly beautiful, straight-A student, valedictorian of every graduating class she's been in, concert pianist, gourmet chef, philanthropist, beloved educator. Apple of her parents eye. While Helga was left neglected.

Okay, it wasn't that bad for me. My parents might not be completely comfortable with the way I live my life, but they've never been abusive or neglectful, just… mildly disapproving. Still, I was the black sheep of the family. The crazy artist sticking out in the old-money dynasty like a sore thumb with a pink-and-purple metal-studded nail.

I pulled off the highway at the airport's exit and began the final approach towards the terminal. "Looks like we're here," I said when we arrived.

"The large airport terminal would be a dead giveaway, yes," she commented. "Thank you so much for the ride, Ri-Ri." Uggghh, that nickname. She'd been calling me that since I was a baby. Cute back then, not so much at 22. "You are a lifesaver."

"Well, you know, it's what sisters are there for…"

"No, really." She leaned over and squeezed me. "I could've just called Ryde. It means a lot that I get to spend this time with you. I wish I got to do it more often. You know, with work, family… we don't really get to talk like this anymore."

"Well… your flight's not for a while. We can talk now."

"Of course! Well, I've just been going on and on about this whole 'Bride' thing the whole trip, so enough of that. What have you been up to?"

"Oh, well… they hired me to do this new mural at the YMAA."

"That's amazing! I'm really proud of you, you know."

"…you are?"

"Why, of course I am, what makes you think different?"

"I… I don't know really. I just get the feeling that you're like Mom and Dad… you don't get me."

"I don't know where you would ever get that idea. Frankly, I envy you. You get to be creative, with your art… with yourself, even. Have I ever mentioned how much I love the things you do with your hair?"

I self-conscious rubbed the close-cropped side of my head. "Really?"

"Absolutely. I never really had the courage to pull off that kind of look, but you are absolutely owning it."

"I dunno… it's kind of funny to hear you talk about courage like you never had any. You're a superhero, for cryin' out loud."

"Ha. These days it's more like a date night for Nadine and me. We dress up, go out, maybe get to save a life or two, then make love on a skyscraper rooftop. It's not really a courage thing anymore so much as a thirtysomething couple looking for a little spice thing."

"I really didn't need to hear that," I commented, stifling a grin.

"Oh, you're a big girl, Ri-Ri. You can handle knowing that your big sister has an active sex life."

"If I'm such a big girl, why do you still call me Ri-Ri?"

"Big Sister prerogative. I'm still gonna call you Ri-Ri when you're eighty."

"Whoopee, something to look forward to."

"Seriously, though… I wish sometimes that I was doing what you were doing. I mean, I wouldn't trade Nadine and Courtney for anything, but… the job's kinda stifling. I look at you making art, I look at Helga telling stories, at Lila singing her hearts out, and I wish I'd gone in that direction instead of the corporate life."

"Rhon… you envy me after the life you've lived? You've done so much! You were Lila's original bass player, the first girl on the Hillwood High football team, a roller derby champ, you've modeled in Paris…"

"One time. I was doing my friend Marinette a favor."

"See, right there, you just name-dropped Marinette Agreste, the biggest designer in Europe, like she was Phyllis from the PTA. That's the kind of life you live. Not to mention all that SAVING THE WORLD you did."

"…well, I wasn't alone…" she said with a blush.

"And yet, you envy me."

"Yeah. Maybe I'm just having my version of a midlife crisis."

"You envy me, I envy you…" I let out a chuckle. "Jeez, what's wrong with us."

"We're sisters," she said. "It's what we do."

"I just hope someday I get to make the kind of impact you have."

"You hope? Ri-Ri, you've already made that kind of impact. You're the illustrator of a beloved, award-winning, soon-to-be-a-major-motion-picture children's novel. Kids all over the world have seen and loved your work. And more than a few adults."

"…I never really thought about that. It was just a job for me. I never thought it would catch on like it did…"

"Well, it did. Your name is world-famous."

I blushed. "I… guess… wait, did you say 'major motion picture?'"

Rhonda nodded. "Imagination Factory's making it happen. I'm a co-producer. Helga's writing. And it's gonna need an art director…"

"…me? I don't know the first thing about that."

"And I don't know the first thing about producing but I'm doing it. Look, it's not happening right away, so you have time to think it over, but I think this project really needs the one who gave Princess Helene a face."

"I will, sis."

She checked her B-watch. "Well, I probably should get going." She gave me one last hug. "Take care of yourself, Ri-Ri. And would it kill you to drop in on us back in New York? Trust me, money wouldn't be a problem, I'd pay for everything…"

"I don't wanna be a bother…"

"A bother? It's your obligation! You have a niece who almost never sees you. You owe it to her to visit."

"It has been a while… okay, you're right. I'll try to make time for a visit sometime this year."

"That's all I ask, sweetie. Well… apart from that one other thing…"

"I, uh… haven't decided yet."

She raised her eyebrow. "Really? You were so keen on it the whole time we were growing up. You were always asking me when I'd share my powers with you, and I kept telling you mom and dad made me promise not to until you were eighteen. Well, that was over four and a half years ago. Offer's been on the table for a while now." She smirked. "You worried you'll lose your ink? Nadine didn't."

"Nadine has a tattoo?"

"Monarch butterfly, upper-left thigh. Really pops when her skin turns aqua. Seriously, though, what's holding you up?"

"I dunno… I guess growing up, I did wanna be you and Helga, but now, I feel like I need to be me first, before that happens."

"Well, I can certainly respect that feeling, but you wouldn't be me, and you wouldn't be Helga. You'd be you with a new body and superpowers. You could use it any way you wanted. You could even be a villain. Of course, if you did, it'd be my sacred duty to lock you up," she teased.

The truth was, I did want to do it, but at the same time, it was a pretty huge step and I didn't think I was ready yet. But… it would be nice to have this to share with my sister, my in-law, my mentor, my protégé, my niece soon enough…

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Just know… whatever you deicide, I have your back 100% of the way. Now go. Keep being Rhiannon Lloyd." And with a final wave, she shouldered her carry-on bag and made a dash for the flight she was bordering on being late for.

I watched her enter the terminal, then pulled away. It felt like something had changed between us. For the first time, I found myself thinking of Rhonda not as some shining figure I would never measure up to, but as someone who saw something special in me.

I had to say… it was a good feeling.


End file.
